We've seen a few examples of other heroes from various Legion worlds (and some non-Legion Words, like Xera of Manna-5, or the Heroes of Lallor).

In the vein of Calorie Queen, what would be some neat 'local heroes' from various UP worlds?

Starting with Bismoll, since Taryn was just on my mind;

Omnivore. This young man is somewhat hyperkinetic and overly enthusiastic, and uses a rare Bismollan 'eating disorder' to fight crime. Instead of fully and immediately digesting any matter he consumes, he only partially converts it, taking several minutes to do so, and if he doesn't keep his mouth closed, the massive energy released by this conversion process bursts forth from his indestructible interior as a wave of dangerous energy. The denser the material he consumes, the more energy is released, and the longer it takes to 'digest,' so that if he swallows a few lead pellets, he produces impressive blasts of heat and force when he opens his mouth, for a few minutes. Even gulping in a mouthful of air allows him to break down the molecules and generate a 'burp' of energy sufficient to knock a grown man from his feat, or shatter a window.

Consumption. Similar to Omnivore, this young woman has a birth defect, although in her case, it was far more extreme. The outer surface of her body shares the indestructible and omni-digestive properties of her Bismollan stomach, and, unfortunately, the same appearance, making her grotesque, and prompting her to wear an all-concealing bodysuit, both to hide the appearance of her skin, and also to protect the rest of the world from her uncontrollable digestive touch, which destroys anything she lays her hands upon. Invulnerable to most means of conventional harm, and with a touch as destructive as that of Mano, of the Fatal Five, she operates as a feared local hero, until, years later, experimental genetic surgery alters the appearance of her skin (but not it's properties) to allow her to live a normal life, free of her containment suit. She remains hairless, and still must wear special clothing, charged with an internal force-field, to prevent it from being digested accidentally, but has also trained to allow herself to touch items without digesting them, making it safe to shake her hand, for instance, so long as nothing greatly disrupts her concentration...

Any thoughts on fun local heroes from Colu, Imsk, Durla, Braal, Cargg, Bgtzl, etc. who might not necessarily have the exact same powers (or, as in the two cases above, or in the case of Calorie Queen, have modifications of the racial powerset)?

There's also the possibility of heroes from Talokk VIII, Xanthu or Winath, where the locals don't normally have powers, but might have powers anyway, like Lady Memory, or Atmos.

Since they wouldn't be Legionnaires, their powers could come from devices, as well, such as an Orandan whose powers come from his magic sword and armor.

I like your ideas, Set...it makes sense to me that there would be a plethora of local heroes and villains we just haven't heard/seen anything about yet; for every Justice League there's an Outsiders or a Teen Titans, right?

How about:

Cosmic Girl: from Braal, Rokk Krinn is her hero. Her innate magnetic abilities aren't all that powerful, but she can usurp the magnetic abilities of anybody else in her vicinity. This makes her a great heroine on Braal where everybody has magnokinesis to some degree or another, but her power offworld is quite limited.

Trinity: Originally a brilliant (but physically average) Carggite, she left her homeworld to study at the Time Institute where she was accidentally exposed to bizarre temporal energies which gave her the power to split into a younger version of herself who has postcognition, a baseline version, and an older version who has precognition. The older triplicate foresaw that Cargg would be taken over by the Dark Circle in years to come, so taking the name Trinity she has returned home to try and prepare her world for the hard times to come...she has become an active superhero in the meantime to put herself in training for when she is really needed to defend her world.

Trinity, a one-woman Maiden/Mother/Crone analogue, is a hot, hot, hot idea! Very creative!

I like how Cosmic Girl is hot stuff on her homeworld, and no great shakes off-planet. I was thinking of a similar Talokkian heroine, who had awesome control of Talokkian desert wildlife, which is pretty freaking useless anywhere that doesn't have Talokkian desert wildlife.

Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a suitably awesome Talokkian desert-critter that wasn't a direct rip-off of the Sandworms of Arakkis...

re: Trinity, thanks dude! I originally used her in a roleplaying game as part of an NPC team called Anomaly who were all empowered by the same time machine. It didn't take much to re-imagine her as a Carggite, and having the Time Institute handy makes her origin that much easier as well...

re: giant sandworms, I say go for it! There can never be too many giant destroyer worms IMO...

Camel spiders are pretty scary and can grow up to 8" long even on boring 21st Century Earth, who knows what the Talokkian equivalent would be like?

So, next on the list, in no particular order, someone I've already used in a fanfic.

From Colu; Augment.

Deathstroke is uber because he uses '90% of his brain' for combat? Sad, strange little man. Augment is a Coluan, and she has written neural programs that allow her to use 90% of her Coluan brain for combat applications, and since she's got about a million times more 'brain' than Slade Wilson, well, let's just say, there's a point where the body can't keep up with the brain, no matter what percentage you've got going on.

She's inhumanly accurate and punishing in hand to hand combat, and she's not at all averse to pulling out a blaster. She doesn't miss. If you aren't moving faster than she could react (and she can react pretty darn fast) and you can't see the future, she is going to dance around you like a mongoose picking a fight with a sedated tree sloth. Her ability to analyze weak points, strike nerve clusters, etc. also makes her blows uncannily effective.

Most Coluans turn up their noses at her inventions, and the applications of her abilities. She's proven quite useful at dealing with out of control experiments, etc. but the average Coluan regards this sort of physical application of Coluan brainpower as terribly unimpressive. Were she a member of any other race, she might find this discouraging, but she's Coluan born and bred, as self-assured as any other, and this is pretty much how they treat everybody. Her opinion of her detractors is not much kinder...

I like Augment's single-mindedness . She should have a friend or brother or lover that's similarly fixated on Art/Theater. He could go around arranging performance pieces that are built around Augment's violent activities.

He'd be thinking of holosculpture, situation comedy, Shakespearean tragedy and Sondheim musicals to fit every occurence.

What would a Coluan serial killer be like? Now *that's* a thought to send shivers down the galaxy's spine...

For my Legion Legacies group, I had Brainiac Fives clone, imaginatively named 'Brainiac Six,' choose to devote a section of his studies to behavioral science, psychology, etc. and become the schmooze-artist extraordinaire. Even knowing that he's potentially the most manipulatory manipulator that ever manipulated, he's popular, because he's just so darn *likable.* He always says the right thing. He's the perfect friend. He's got the equivalent of 100 smooth operators on call, in his noggin, 24/7.

Querl would, of course, be crushed that his 'son' is wasting his potential learning how to make friends and influence people, when he should be studying 16th dimensional physics...

Oh, that's hot. Coluans have been portrayed as *loving* to prove their superior intellects, and that's very much a serial killer gag, to arrange 'perfect crimes' or to dare the world to catch them. A Coluan might seek to prove that he/she is smarter than even that freak Brainiac Five, by committing insanely convoluted (or insanely subtle, so that it takes years to even recognize a pattern in the 'random' deaths that have been occuring) crimes, right in Metropolis, under Brainiac Five's virtual nose ('in his backyard,' so to speak).

Chilling indeed! We've seen the chilling Kryptonian villains, and the chilling Daxamite villain, but a Coluan, or a Naltorian, or a Durlan, or a Titanian, or a Bgtzln? Ooh! So many races that would be utterly scary as psycho-killers... A Coluan Riddler? A Titanian Joker?

Another from Braal, to go with razsolo's Cosmic Girl;

Tungsten Torv, an attempt to kickstart his failing biomagnetic field as an infant and give him a normal life instead super-charged him so that all of the metal in the area was torn apart on a molecular level and integrated into his body.

Torv is now a living being of magnetically reinforced metal particles, like an iron sandman, and can fly apart into an electrically-charged magnetically-powered metal ‘sandstorm,' or remain in a humanoid form of magnetically contained metallic 'superfluid.'

Augment is an awesome character idea; and I love the idea of a Coluan serial killer, which I guess is something similar to what they tried with Brainiac's mother in the reboot....that had loads of potential, but kind of fell flat unfortunately.

I really really like the idea of Brainy (or more likely Cham as he grew into the Legion's Batman by the 80's) coming across a pattern of deaths that occurred over several years which only becomes more obvious as it's explored further leading to a final confrontation with someone who only dropped clues for the Legion in the first place because he was tired of his brilliance being un-noticed for so long...

From Bgtzl;

Exile, can 'Zone' other people, turning them into ghosts, unable to touch or affect the material world. He himself is stuck in a 'transition' zone, between Earth-space and Bgtzln-space, rendering him intangible (and transparent) to both, except during moments of intense concentration, or specially force-shielded areas, and when he 'exiles' someone, he can send them into a completely different vibrational plane, remaining intangible to him (and no threat to him) as well. His power to 'exile' someone starts at touch range, but he eventually gains the ability to project a ray from his hand that can exile someone.

If not for his ability to drag other things into the 'transition zone' or 'T-Zone' with himself, he would have starved to death / suffocated when his abilities went out of control, as he must pull food / drink / etc. into the T-Zone for his own use. He later discovers that, in the T-Zone, he doesn't actually *have* to eat, drink, breathe, etc. and is no longer aging, but that the longer he goes without exercising his physical organs and body, the more it atrophies, leaving him faint when he does temporarily materialize. So he continues eating, etc. because he's afraid of withering away and becoming a *real* ghost...

How about a non-powered hero.

I was thinking of having this be an anti-hero a bit. His name is Lupin (yes I got the name from the Japanese cartoon character) He first appeared on the planet Zuun. Whether he is originally from Zuun is unknown. He has committed several spectacular robberies, but at the same time has lead authorities to uncover even greater crimes. At other times he has rescued countless people from danger and has anonymously transfered credits from Leland McCauley's secret accounts to various charities to help the poor and disadvantaged as well as some of those individuals directly.

Lupin displays great acrobatic prowess and employs various devices to accomplish his deeds.

Ooh, a Zuunian Batman! I like it!

I'm not real clear on Zuun. From the cartoon, I got the impression that it's a newer-than-most colony world, with a lot of untamed wilderness and some scary natural wild-life, where an unscrupulous researcher might be able to settle and engage in some scary illegal research and 'get away with it' because the colonists have more important stuff to deal with.

Perhaps some continents of Zuun are more settled than others, and Dr. Londo was based on one of the ones deliberately left pristine, and was, officially anyway, studying the natural ecology and cataloguing the local life-forms and all that, while unofficially turning his son into an assassin by infusing him with savage and predatory traits from various Zuunian beasties he'd captured to 'study.'

Mixing this up with Lupin, perhaps he's not just 'Batman,' but also a little bit Tarzan, and was raised in one of the less civilized area, adopting some wilderness survival skills (and gear) for his city-based shenanigans. He wasn't 'raised by wolves' or anything, but he's more outdoorsy and aware of his surroundings than the average urban resident (and what other people see as vigilante-ism or a disrespect for civil authority he sees as the sort of thing that was pretty much commonplace 'on the fringe').

Three from Durla;

Swarm Swarm is a 'breeder,' capable of generating mobile semi-sentient 'homonculi' out of her own tissue and send them out to spy on others, etc. or 'fall apart' into a swarm of tiny creatures, enveloping a foe from all sides. She has only limited control of her components while dissipated like this, and must give them very specific instructions, almost like computer programs. Fortunately, she's grown quite good at this, and someone unaware of the limitations of her programming might mistake the complicated instructions for signs of sentience on the part of one of her drones.

Mimic Mimic specializes in assuming very precise humanoid forms, down to the genetic level, and can adapt so precisely as to gain access to the abilities of the race mimiced. This process requires assimilation of biological matter from the 'donor,' and Mimic is scrupulous about getting permission first, and never changing the appearance of their distinctive costume, as they do not wish to impersonate the donors, merely access their abilites. Current donors include a Braalian woman (magnokinetic), an Imskian man (shrinking, Micro Lad, actually, who agreed to the procedure while in prison), a Renii woman (winged flight), a Tamaranian male (solar-powered flight), a Karnan male (feline strength and agility) and an Emana Branx female (four armed strongwoman). No Coluan, Titanian or Daxamite has yet proven willing to allow Mimic to 'borrow' their form (and abilities), but Mimic remains hopeful.

Healer Like Swarm, Healer is a breeder, a member of a Durlan caste that has traditionally not been allowed off-world. Whether or not the rules have been relaxed, or Swarm and Healer have chosen to defy them is unclear. In any event, he uses his morphic cellular biology to provide biomass and stabilization to injured sentients of nearly any biological race, sending his own cells into wounded tissue to replace damaged cells, and then causing them to permanantly transform into duplicates of the cells they are replacing, essentially 'growing' new tissue for the wounded subjects. He has also developed his talents to allow himself to interface with damaged nervous tissue, allowing him to temporarily usurp control of another's body, which he generally uses to stabilize bio-functions, ease heartrates, etc. but has used in the past to paralyze uncooperative patients by nerve-blocking them, and could, in theory, use in a fight, if the situation seemed to warrant setting aside his pacifist beliefs.

Like all Durlans, all three are capable of rearranging their forms, to an extent, but none of them come anywhere near Chameleon Boy's proficiency or skill. Swarm is the only one skilled at assuming radically non-humanoid forms, and she tends to assume many smaller forms, not significantly larger ones.

(1) Dreamcatcher of Zwen:

Her mutant psionic abilities allow her to astral-project while asleep. She is able to enter the dreams of others, and co-opt and direct them. She protects children from nightmares.

For a race which spends half the year asleep, she is a great hero. Naturally, no one knows her secret, "waking" identitiy.

There may be some Neil Gaiman Sandman-ish stuff going on as well.


(2) Invisible Lass of Kathoon:

On a world of eternal night, where everyone can see in the dark, she is able to become invisible. This is a tremendously impressive ability on Kathoon, as people there are just not used to the idea of NOT being able

Oh, that's just super-clever. I love it!

The notion that there might be some psychic predators / dream vampires on Zwen that torment the sleepers, who can't just wake up and end a nightmare, is creepy as well. She's kind of a 'vampire slayer,' if that's the case.

Is she like Night Girl, only able to use her powers in the dark, making them great on Kathoon, but kind of a joke to everyone else?

Also a smart twist using the alien nature of the world and it's people's natural powers to come up with a power that's hot stuff on one's homeworld, and kind of terrible anywhere else.

Kinda like a Titanian who has the mutant power to be immune to telepathy (or set up a false identity in his own head, fooling telepaths into reading fake information). "Uh, yeah, Psychic Static Lad, 99% of the galaxy can't read minds, so your power isn't that hot. Rejected!"

I really like both your ideas Tom...invisibility in darkness is a clever power when everyone on your world can see in the dark normally...and Zwen is one of the worlds I would like to see explored more in the Legion universe because the idea of a society that has to shut down for half the year is fascinating to me. I always wonder how they interact with the rest of the UP, and if they're kind of considered to be one of the backwater worlds because they'd be so far behind everyone else....

Lullabye Lad is a Zwennian hero I came up with for my fanfic. He's like the Jigglypuff of the future, sending people to sleep with a vocal command. Given how hard we've seen it is to wake Stone Boy up in the past, I'd imagine that's something that would come in really handy fighting crime on his homeworld...

Some Imskian heroes;

Doctor Atom Doctor Atom can shrink herself, but, more importantly, can shrink items of medical equipment, emergency supplies and survival gear. She's a trained medic / physician's assistant / xeno-physiologist, and can use her own shrinking abilities to enter the bodies of non-Imskian opponents and cause all sorts of physiological disruptions, preferring to block nerves for a quick resolution. She carries an assortment of shrunken equipment on her person, from medical gears to nonlethal weaponry to an inflatable ten-man emergency survival shelter! She's both a bit of a 'girl scout,' with all sorts of unusual gear stowed away on her person, 'just in case' and has a bit of a problem with holding onto stuff that she probably won't ever find a use for...

Tensor Tensor is able to alter his size with incredible speed, and can expand fast enough that his hand to hand strikes explode with 10,000 PSI as he 'growth-strikes' into a person. His body is not significantly stronger than that of a normal person, so he must be extremely careful to avoid 'grow-striking' a hard surface, or at such an angle that his limb bears the brunt of the force (as he'd snap his own arm in a microsecond!), and so he has developed a loose-limbed and very precise fighting style, using his growth powers more to push people away in a fashion similar to judo, than to deliver damage via a 'harder' martial art style. He learned this lesson the hard way, and is sometimes hesitant to use his abilities in this way, as he shattered the bones in his arm badly, attempting to push away an object while improperly braced. He is fond of using his ability to shrink away from a blow faster than most people can react, to play 'keep away' and 'rope a dope,' allowing a more powerful opponent to wear himself out futilely trying to hit him. He has even managed to 'dodge' an explosion, in this manner, becoming small enough to 'surf' the shockwaves to safety.

Micromass At full size, his destructively unstable shrinking field is at weakest intensity, and yet still annhilates light and air striking his body, so that he appears a hazy black humanoid form, accompanied by a shift in air pressure. As he reduces, the power of this destructive aura increases, collapsing items he touches with intense force, making him like a living black hole, when the size of a coin. Only a special force-field exosuit allows him to co-exist non-destructively with the outside world, although, when at full size, special treatments involving nth metal can temporarily neutralize his powers, allowing him a few hours of normalcy, at the price of remaining human-sized and being unable to interact with shrunken Imskians. Due to the nature of his powers, and the constant containment required, it's been whispered that he's one step away from being the next Mano, doomed to a life of villainy, but those who know him find him to be disarmingly upbeat about his situation, with an enviable youthful resiliency and seemingly inexhaustible sense of optimism. If anything, the sense of anonymity that his powers give him (by concealing his features) makes him a bit fearless, socially, despite a sheltered upbringing and, in his hours of power-negated 'freedom,' plagued by seemingly uncharacteristic attacks of shyness and social awkwardness. He's more comfortable as a shadowy superheroic force of nature, than as a teenaged boy...

Colony Queen Colony Queen is a mutant, unable to reduce her mass, but able to shrink all the same. When she reduces to half her mass, instead of merely growing shorter, she produces a second self, equally sized, and as she continues to reduce her size, more duplicates of herself appear, all linked to her as they share a single group consciousness. At half-height, there are eight of her. When she reduces to one tenth of her normal size, there are a thousand of her, at that size, each weighing only a few ounces, and while they have only the strength appropriate to their tiny size, they are incredibly well-coordinated, and can perform complicated mechanical tasks (or acts of surveillance) in fluid circumstances that the best programmed mechanical nanobot might prove unable to adapt to. She has learned the hard way that if any of her 'selves' do not return, the loss of mass is reflected in her larger self, as pain and bruising distributed across her body, for a smaller 'manikin,' and more traumatic damage for a more significant loss. While it's hardly the superheroic norm, she has learned that adding a few extra pounds makes it easier to acclimate to such events, as the non-vital fatty tissues seem to disproportionately absorb the trauma of lost manikin. As a result, while other active heroes try to keep themselves in a lean, athletic fighting trim, she's strongly motivated to keep herself at a less toned 'fighting weight,' and tends to carry a bit more weight than some of her heroic peers.

Colony Queen!! I love her! I had a villain in an RPG once called Snow Pea who duplicated by splitting his mass into 5 smaller bodies...but Colony Queen is like a million times better realised version of that idea! Love it!

I also dig Doctor Atom, she has a "Dr Pym Scientific Adventurer" circa the old West Coast Avengers days feel about her...

I am gonna think up some more to kill the last couple of hours at work and post them tonight from home

Looking forward to it!

Giant crystal spiders killed Umbra's mother, the Talokian champion before Umbra.
The British 'Primeval' series had 8 - 10 foot desert type spiders that were supposed to come from Earth's past.
Bugs of any kind are sooo ickkky great.

Some from Winath!

Flora and Fauna, two teenage female twins who are connected to respectively the Green and the Red of their world...so Flora can control and communicate with plant life, and Fauna can do the same with animal life. As they get older they will grow more into their abilities and have wider range and more diverse effects. At the moment though their powers are at a level that are useful for minor crime-fighting, but not much beyond that. They are also connected to their own biosphere, so are powerless outside of Winath (this may or may not change as they get older as well).

Double Trouble: Junio and Marin Wiviarre seemed normal Winathian boys growing up, though they seemed to have a closer bond than would be expected even of identical twins. They both naturally excelled at physical activities, and were both quite extroverted. They became professional wrestlers and minor celebrities on Winath, but they have a secret that only their parents know....there is no Marin Wiviarre.

Junio is a singleton with the mutant ability to split into two identical beings. Nobody really knows where this ability comes from, though the family suspects it may be the result of one of Junio's great-grandparents coming from the planet Janus (Double-Header's homeworld). Junio split for the first time in the womb, and the two bodies only merged again when there were no hospital staff around to see. His parents kept this a secret, and as he grew older they realised that the two boys were extensions of the one individual, but they couldn't face the scandal of having a singleton child. They trained Junio to treat his other self as a brother, but in reality there is only one personality between them.

When his bodies merge, Double Trouble is twice as fast, strong and tough as his already well-developed bodies and while separated the two share the one mind. "They" became a well-known public hero for the adventure, but also because Junio is secretly scared he will turn out evil or insane due to the Winathian prejudice against single births and he needs to prove himself. He is terrified that one day someone will find out his awful secret, and hopes that Junio and Marin's popularity will distract anyone from looking too closely.

We already have Cargg.

Actually, it would be interesting to have a Carggite pretend to be two Winathians....

This won't work because there's absolutely no reason why this character should not step into a Legion meeting (or the Legion Academy) and ask for permission from everyone present so that he has a large library of forms. The characters being heroes, they would have to agree.

Perhaps a pair of twins with a Winathian father and a Carggite mother, who are able to not only produce three dupes each, but also to merge into each other to produce one person with six times the strength, etc. of a single person.

I dunno, I can think of any number of reasons it wouldn't play out like that...I can imagine Shadow Lass and Sensor Girl would have a problem on spiritual grounds with letting someone else take the power that is theirs as their respective planetary protectors....Dawnstar or Chemical Kid are both pretty arrogant, I could see them having a problem with sharing their awesome powers with someone who hasn't earned it...and I think a lot of heroes would quite reasonably be a little apprehensive about that much power being in the hands of one person - especially if that person is going out of their way to gather as much power as they can, it would be only natural to question their motives...and even with the best intentions, there's still the possibility they could go about things the wrong way or that they could be manipulated by someone like Mordru or the Time Trapper...

A couple more....

Macro Maid: Hani Venne was a scientist who wanted to synthesise the radiation of the space dragons which give the Imskians their ability to shrink. After a mishap in the lab, she absorbed an almost lethal dose and found herself shrinking at a rate of a couple of inches per month with no way to return to normal size. Desperate for a remedy, she approached Colossal Boy for help. With his consent, Hani spliced some of his own DNA with hers to counter the shrinking effect...it worked, and even gave her the ability to grow to a maximum height of fifteen feet, but it also permanently removed her ability to shrink. While her limited growth ability isn't that hot outside of Imsk, it makes her a behemoth amongst its tiny cities.

And from Colu, Meme. Bored with his life, Meme found a way to digitise his consciousness and transfer it through the Coluan netspace to inhabit other neural networks. When he possesses a host body, he gains access to that person's memories and skills without losing his own, but only another Coluan has a physiology sufficiently advanced to withstand the possession. There are no ill effects of his possession afterwards, so Meme travels the globe as a sort of Coluan Jessica Fletcher, solving crimes and exploring mysteries to his heart's content.

He's sort of a highpowered Ferro, the version that couldn't change back to a flesh person?

Nice.
And sad.

I like your Augment character and she was certainly interesting in the one story that I read of yours with her in it.

Since all Coluans AREN'T 12th level, actually, only the Brainiacs, not counting 10th level Vril, ARE, right?

I think a 12th level psychopatic serial killer would be unstoppable, wouldn't he/she?

If I were going to create one, I'd put his level at a 9-11, someone who is dillusional about his/her abilities, since they usually are, and needing to best Brainy (like in a 'Criminal Minds' episode or two.)

Then, they could actually slip-up enough in their obsessions to be catchable, especially if he/she developes, like you said, or was it ML?, a fixation on Brainy.
In the reboot, Querl's mother sort of fit this idea, didn't she?
(Edit: sorry this was already mentioned by raz - I just didn't read that far yet. )

I'd love to see Brainy and Nura as a Sherlock and Watson, with Cham and Brin for the legwork and information gatherers.

I thought this might be fun - Dalia is a planetary champion because of her abilities.
Even moving slowly, she monitors all of the Zwen settlements during the half yearly sleeping period on her world.
She deals with any threats using the computer defense systems and maintaining weather and seismic planetary safety controls as they are needed:

original photo of Ann Ward by Nigel Barker

Beautiful work, candlelight.

Carggg would be a fruitful source of super-heroes.

The one who can produce two duplicates, one of fire, and one of ice.

The one who can produce two duplicates, one super-dense, the other a phantom.

The one who can produce two duplicates, one of electricity, and one of positronic energy. (kind of like Jonni Thunder and Negative Man combined)

The one who can produce two duplicates, one a demon-form, one an angel-form.

The Cargggan Green Lantern.

The one who whose triplicated form is: One, has super-strength and invulnerability; Two, has super-speed and flight; Three, has super-senses, heat-vision, and super-intelligence.

The tri-jitsu master.

Yes, Carggites are fun.
I'd like to be Two, only with the super-intellence, too.


And thank-you, I've been waiting for a reason to use that photo for awhile now.
I was in such a hurry, as usual, that I left the CW on, I'll have to remove that.
sigh
Edit: done

Pretty much my thoughts. First, Mimic can only take racial abilities, so Shady and Sensor would be out (although it could take on a Talokkian form and gain other Talokkian traits, such as good night vision and being perhaps a touch stronger than the average person).

But many Legionnaires would be opposed to 'sharing' their powers and form, starting with Shrinking Violet, for obvious reasons, and including people like Mon-El (who, thanks to Ol-Vir, is quite familiar with how dangerous someone with his powers can be) and Element Lad (who seems unwilling to allow people to even visit his homeworld, let alone steal their forms and powers!).

Others might not care so much. Stone Boy, for instance, might see no harm in allowing someone to emulate his ability to turn into a statue, and, while Triplicate Girl might not tolerate someone taking her form and using her powers, there's gotta be a Carggite out there somewhere who could use the money and would 'license' their image and abilities for a coupla credits...

I adore Swarm and Healer.
They're extremely inventive and interesting.

Mimic, however, reminds me of Ben 10, only without the wrist gear.
That being said, I think that if he had more than just permission from his subjects to limit his power, he might be powered down enough to not raise objection.
ESPECIALLY since I have always thought that Durlan's are constantly registering and inprinting new forms.
I guess the 'down to a molecular' blueprint is slightly different?

Anyway, like Ben, maybe Mimic could have a time limit that his cells, however they're formed, can maintain superpowered forms.
Perhaps the limitation is sever enough to make him not capable of great and fantastic feats.

A further limitation might be recovery time between forms and/or no do overs, either ever or for a specific amount of time or form numbers.

Did I say that I love your Swarm and Healer?

Thanks! I've always liked the creeptacular concept of an organism that uses shapeshifting abilities to heal other people, by sending it's own tissues into the a wounded creature and causing them to replace damaged tissue, and then sort of adapt to the surrounding biology, so that they aren't rejected, as they transform themselves to incorporate the DNA of the surrounding tissue, and are 'recognized' as 'self' by the body's defense systems.

There's also terrifying non-healing applications to such an ability, such as to put organic 'bombs' inside of people, to later rupture and release toxins or contagion or to grow out of control like some alien cancer, but Healer would never dream of using their powers this way...

My thought is that aliens with superhuman powers would still be subject to the same laws as anyone else. A telepath would be expected to respect personal privacy and not deep-probe passersby and broadcast intimate details about them to all and sundry, for instance, and could be charged with criminal tresspass or whatever.

Similarly, a shapeshifter might be able to use their understanding of human biology to assume a generic human form, but to assume the form of an actual person would be an act of fraud and misrepresentation, if you didn't have that person's consent to do so.

Cham, being a superhero with both government sanction and the legal backing of the Science Police, would be allowed to duplicate suspects during the course of an investigation or sting operation (pretending to be a henchman of a crime figure, for example, to gather information on him, just as an undercover police officer is allowed to pretend to be a crook to get close to other crooks), but the average Durlan on the street, IMO, wouldn't legally get to do that, since non-shapeshifters would be afraid of shapeshifters stealing their identities, draining their bank accounts, sleeping with their spouses, etc.

But that's all IMO. If there were no such laws, and Titanians and Durlans and Bgtzlns could pretty much ignore privacy laws or identity theft laws or tresspassing laws, then Earth xenophobia would make a heck of a lot more sense...

A time limit makes some sense. In theory, whatever biological processes go on in a Durlan body might be suspended while they are in another form. They can eat, breathe, etc. as appropriate to the form they've assumed, but they increasingly feel 'hungry' or like they are 'holding their breath' as their true Durlan biology is not getting the sustenance *it* requires.

Durlans like Cham, and Yera, who spend hours at a time in alternate forms as the result of infiltrations, or acting jobs, would be extremely proficient, by Durlan standards, at 'holding their breath' and staying in non-Durlan shapes.

If this is the case, the officially recognized orange-antennae-head-humanoid form would have been specifically designed by Brande's people to allow the Durlan physiology to function unconstrained, so that any Durlan who has trained themselves to assume this form could stay in it indefinitely, although some might be more comfortable in their green tentacle-monster form, and revert when out of sight to 'relax.'

No do-overs, in combination with the requirement to get consent, could be a crippling drawback.

On the other hand, perhaps, as part of getting consent, Mimic secures a certain amount of DNA from the donor (a strand of hair could contain enough DNA for hundreds of changes, if not tens of thousands). Each time Mimic assumes a form, their body devours and rips apart some of the stored DNA, decoding it and altering it's own DNA to match, and so the supply of DNA available from the donor is decreased the more they use that particular form. (And it's possible that someone who understands the nature of this change, which would be easy to learn about, since Mimic has signed contracts explaining how it works to a bunch of people, would be able to steal the samples, or hit Mimic with a burst of DNA-scrambling radiation, rendering stored samples useless, and leaving Mimic stuck being 'just a Durlan' for as long as it takes to recover / replace DNA stores of other powered species.)

Indeed you did, and thanks!

Winathians don't normally have powers, but they do have the 'twin-thing' going on, and, while twins of other worlds may sometimes be said to have a special connection, the twins of Winath sometimes take that a step farther...

The Terror Twins, Phebi (feh-bee) and Deme (dee-em), telepathically linked, able to tap into their sisters strength, speed, etc. so that each of them is perfectly linked, moving together like cogs in a deadly machine, and each functioning with twice normal strength, speed, etc. for a woman of their size and strength. Unfortunately, their constant link to each other has left them violently distrustful of others, with an 'us against the world' mentality, and more than a touch of co-dependent psychosis. Sometimes they want to be alone in the universe, and end all life in a genocidal rampage. Other times, they want to impose their shared link upon others, using machines to crush the will of others and 'link' them to themselves, tapping both their own skills and mental reserves, and also using them as expendable drones. They have a primal love of causing chaos and confusion, sowing terror not for any political cause or philosophical belief, but because their own fearlessness, as they reinforce and reassure each other constantly, makes them cruelly curious as to the reactions of others to acts of destruction and carnage. The sight of others scurrying to save themselves from whatever act of terror they have engineered, and the later breathless news reports of the atrocity, reassure them and fill them with a sense of superiority and control.

[Yeah, they're not 'heroes' by any stretch of the definition, so they don't really fit the title of the thread. The next Winathian isn't really a super-hero either, but he's a much nicer person...]

Link A rare single child, Link's clingy co-dependent nature, a result of his lack of a twin, on a world where *everyone* has a twin, developed into a full blown psychic capacity. Some part of him flailed around, seeking the connection that everyone else had, and he found it, time and again, as he developed the ability to 'synch up' with other creatures. At first, the ability was limited to pets and farm animals, as he would link his mind to their own, and perceive through their senses, and communicate with them on some primal level. He didn't so much 'control' them, as influence their behavior, and since he worked primarily with animals that were already domesticated, he found it easy to suggest courses of action to them. The more he linked up to them, the more the animal seemed to retain a fraction of it's enhanced intellect, bled over from his own, and the easier it became to link up with them, and to teach them even greater tricks. It was some time before he learned that he could manipulate groupings of similar animals, already with some weak 'herd mentality' or 'pack mentality' of their own, insinuating himself into the position of 'pack alpha' or 'leader of the herd.'

He makes his living on Winath, domesticating animals with his abilities, and linking up with various species, expanding his own awareness of the world around him.

It's well known that he's a bit of a man-about-town with his love-life, and that he only dates other 'singles,' like himself. His various 'lovers' (not all, or even most, of whom, have any sort of physical relationship with him) agree to keep to themselves his ability to forge a link with them as well, allowing them, for a brief time, to experience the life of connection that fate has denied them. The fleeting links he forms with his fellow singleton Winathians are nothing so strong as the shared-sensory, empathic links he forms with animals, although, like those links, they grow stronger with repeated exposure, and some of his longer-term paramours can feel his presence, or even catch an impression of a strong emotion he experiences, as their link grows far beyond any normal sense of familiarity and connectedness that a normal pair of Winathian twins would share.

OK, OK, one more.

The Four-Legged Woman of Janus.

Due to a rare, once-in-a-lifetime genetic abnormality, she gradually divides into two individuals from the feet up, rather than from the head down.

A premiere ballerina, and a master of the ancient French martial art of Savate, she is also moonlights as an amateur detective, in the tradition of Irene Adler, Miss Marple, Trixie Belden, and Velma Dinkley and Daphne Blake.

I have been doing research for fanfiction, and I really like the Xudarians. I found this obscure character on The Book of Oa: http://glcorps.dcuguide.com/profile.php?name=galtere

Tomar-Re was one of the classic 'alien' Green Lanterns from way, way back. What a funky design. Orange skin, a fish fin and a parrot beak? Whacky!

And, from Naltor;

The Historian The doctors foresaw only a slim chance that both mother and child would survive the difficult birth, but she took steps to change those odds, sending relatives across Naltor in advance of the event to bring compatible blood and experimental supplied to strengthen her for the upcoming labor, defying the dire predictions. Both she and her child lived, although Candr was born without eyes, and, it was later discovered, without the gift for prophecy. Still, they adapted. His malformed optic nerves and tissues proved incorrectable, and they opted for cybernetic eyes, which the clever child learned to strip the governing software from to allow him to see farther and with far greater magnification than traditional Naltorian sight, and in different wavelengths. Still, it wasn't his bionic eyes that made him a hero, it was his prophetic gift, not to see the future, but to read the past. When he enters an area, or meets an individual, or hefts an item, he begins to receive glimmers of the past of that subject, with the most emotionally dramatic (or traumatic) experiences coming in the 'clearest.' As crimes, particularly violent ones, tend to leave powerful 'psychic marks' for him to locate, he found himself naturally gravitating to solving crimes, coming to a crime-scene, or handling a piece of evidence, or meeting a suspect, and learning of events past, that might prove guilt or innocence.

As Naltorian criminals can foresee events that might lead to their capture, they tend to be extremely good at keeping out of jail, but they had no experience with a man who could see evidence they'd left in the *past,* and The Historian has made quite the name for himself!

While hunting for information on Thaal Sinestro, I came across this villain:

http://glcorps.dcuguide.com/profile.php?name=schlaggman

Can we get a 31st century version? Pretty please?

A metal-toothed Bismollan? Seems kinda redundant since they are already able to bite into pretty much anything with their normal teeth... (Indeed, the metal teeth would probably be destroyed the first time their salivary glands activated!)

Ages ago, I invented a 'reverse X-Men,' and the backwards version of Cyclops was named Charybis, and wore a special mouthguard, because whenever he opened his mouth, it opened a vortex to a black hole and started sucking things in front of him into the vortex, crushing them until they fit into the mouth-sized aperture and were annhilated... (So Cyclops opens his eyes and sends out destructive energy, while Charybis opens his mouth and pulls stuff in to be destroyed.) The reverse-version of Wolverine sarcastically said, 'Yeah, that's our fearless leader. He has the mutant power to suck real hard.'

That might make for a scary Bismollan alternate, one that has a powerful gravitational force that pulls stuff towards his mouth...

From Talokk VIII;

Scirocco shares a special link to the silica-sands of the Talokkian desert, able to control it through a discharge of static electricity, and riding animate dunes of sand through the desert, leashed by coils of static electricity from his hands. He can whip the sands up into deadly sandstorms, or send them to engulf others in great masses, and can, to a limited extent, use static electricity to defend himself, in a situation where he has no sand to manipulate.

His ability to electrostatically manipulate the sands of Talokk VIII is shared by a species of subterranean sand-serpents of vast size, and due to his similar manipulations of the static-charged sands, these creatures ignore his passage, almost as if he were one of them.

Also from Talokk VIII;

Survivor has smooth and indistinct features, almost as if the harsh climates that she frequents has worn her smooth. More years ago than she can remember, she was lost in a terrible storm, and her body adapted to survive the unforgiving climate. Over the years, she has travelled to every corner of Talokk VIII, from the hearts of the bleakest desert, to the depths of the oceans, to the frozen expanse of the polar regions, and in each place, her body has adapted, growing fins, gills, fur or scales, as appropriate. Her body has been burned, frozen, crushed and swallowed whole, and she has adapted to survive each of these ordeals. She takes a certain perverse pleasure in challenging new and extreme situations, wondering if this time she'll find the one thing that she cannot adapt to and survive. She now looks up at the night sky, and wonders how her body will adapt to the cold and dark between the stars.

Perhaps she has learned every lesson that Talokk VIII has to offer, and it is time to leave the nest...

From Tamaran;

For thousands of years, Tamaran has had a small sub-population, born seemingly randomly to any family or bloodline, these days called the Black Tamaranians. Capable of absorbing solar energy, like all Tamaranians, the 'Black' Tamaranians are unable to release this energy to fuel the power of flight, and remain ground-bound.

Ten centuries past, a Tamaranian was born to the royal family with this 'defect,' and coined herself the name 'Blackfire,' leading to others with a similar affliction being called 'Black Tamaranians' for the first time, and, due to her, admittedly brief, grip on the throne, comign out of second-class status and becoming somewhat fashionable as enforcers for 'their' queen. Through Psion manipulations, Komand'r, called Blackfire, empowered many of these faithful servants with energy-projecting abilities similar to her own. The beneficiaries of her largesse enjoyed perhaps too much the role-reversal under her reign, where they were no longer the cripples and the unseen, but instead the feared arms of the queen.

Her reign was not so fondly remembered by the vast majority of Tamaranians, and with the end of that reign, the former enforcers found themselves running the risk of extinction at the hands of those they had oppressed in her name. In a surprising show of solidarity, they banded together and fought their way to an isolated region, and fortified their position against all attempts at seeking revenge for their past abuses. Decades became centuries, and over generations, the old insults were forgotten.

The Tamaranians and 'Black' Tamaranians found themselves defending their world from external threat on several occasions, begrudgingly working together, at first, but eventually forming tentative alliances, and, yet more centuries later, slowly re-integrating as a society.

Genetic technology had long since been discovered that allowed the Black Tamaranians to correct the deficiencies that prevented them from flying, and over ten generations of sporadic intermingling of the two groups, some traces of energy manipulation have also begun to appear among the original population (who, despite the name 'Black' Tamaranian, appear no different from any other Tamaranian, to the casual observer. The name refers only to their former patron, Blackfire, whom they still quietly remember as the one who brought their sub-population out of obscurity, although they know better than to share their appreciation for the former tyrant-usurper queen with those whose ancestors did not benefit from her brief reign.).

By the time of the 31st century, the greatest heroes of Tamaran are four Black Tamaranians called The Black Watch.

Bloodfire is a sex symbol on Tamaran, being blessed not merely with exceptional energy projection abilities, but also with a rare violet-black coloration, and a long mane of curly blood-red hair, that leaves a trail like billowing volcanic plume of smoke and fire behind her as she flies. Her solar-powered energy projection powers manifest as dull crimson beams of force and heat that often melt items struck and start raging fires. While most Black Tamaranians project stored energy from their hands, she more commonly shoots bolts of heat and force from her glowing red eyes.

Nightfire has the more common skin tone reminiscent of Komand'r herself, and has waist-length straight black hair, that leaves a black streak across the sky behind him, like a swath of starless night (most males keep their hair short, and leave little or no visible energy trail in flight). His dark blue-black energy blasts dissipate energy struck, causing machines to falter and run down, and individuals to feel chilled and stunned. He can even smother fires with a concentrated attack. While all Tamaranians are stronger than the human norm, Nightfire seems to gain strength from dissipating energy with his powers, and is several times stronger than a normal Tamaranian of his size and build.

Moonfire also shares the skin tone of Komand'r, and has shoulder-length gently wavy white hair, that leaves a very short 'trail' of what appears to be serpentine wisps of fog behind him in flight. He generates pale white beams of gravitic energy that he can use to push items away, drag them to him, or, with concentration, to move them around, like a form of telekinetic 'tractor beam.'

Ghostfire was born hairless, without even eyebrows, but has the same coloration as a standard Tamaranian. She leaves no colored energy trail in her wake, and produces bright beams of dazzling golden light that she can use to blind others, focus into laser-like cutting beams, or use to manipuate the spectral properties of a target, causing it to alter colors, or even making it translucent and near-invisible. With extreme concentration, she can even form holographic images, but they are not easily mistaken for anything else, as she has not yet learned to make holograms in any color other than soft yellow. Of the four, however, Ghostfire is the one with the best understanding of the physical sciences, and the one most likely to figure out new uses of her powers...

Both Tom Tanner and razsolo came up with ideas for Zwennian heroes, which totally wouldn't have occured to me! Here's what they inspired in my noggin;

Golem Girl When Gerta Shyr goes to sleep in contact with earth or stone, her body sinks into the surrounding surface, become insubstantial and infused with the material, which then shapes itself into a form like that of her own body, but several times larger, as her self diffuses through the surrounding material. Through lucid dreaming techniques, she has learned to function in this state (although she does come across as a bit distracted...), and can move this massive earthen or stone 'golem' around and take action. If the construct of earth and stone is demolished, she 'wakes up' abruptly, a surprised-looking but otherwise unharmed Zwennian woman who has begun to study unarmed fighting techniques just in case of such a situation...

She tends to spread out the longer she remains asleep, and more so in elements like sand or loose earth (assuming some truly colossal sizes), and less in sturdier material, like stone (in which she is rarely more than twice her normal height, and about forty times as heavy).

^^^^That reminded me of a Zwennian villain I came up with; Gorgon Girl. With green dreadlocks and body modifications to give her vertically slitted pupils and a greenish tinge to her skin, she is also pretty heavily pierced and tattooed.

As her name would suggest, she can turn people to stone by inducing a coma state in her victim. She needs to make eye contact to do it as she accesses her victim's neural pathways through their optic nerves and because her victim is catatonic, it's pretty much impossible to restore them to normalcy without the assistance of a skilled psi.

The strange part about her power is that it also works on non-Zwennians, which has raised a lot of questions about how the Zwennian petrification process actually works on a biological level, and if it's something that non-Zwennians could learn with the right discipline....

That's a totally logical progression, a Zwennian 'hypnotist' who makes other Zwennians fall asleep (and turn to stone), so that she can rob them! Very cool notion, and also neat to give her the ability to take it up a notch and inflict 'Zwennian sleeping sickness' on non-Zwennians, causing them to turn to stone!

Very cool, and very creative! I totally wish I'd thought of that!

I love the Tamaran story and group!

I'd have to alter the history slightly because the planet was destroyed and most of the population with it.

Vril Dox got involved and moved the dead planet Rann from it's position in space to the Tamaran solar system and causing the planet to regenerate an atmosphere/water and the ability to support life.

The Rannian people settled in and Kormand'r brought her surviving people, most are soldiers and ALL are totally loyal to her, back to the system and they were given a continent to settle and build on.

Tamaran/Rann is also now the site for .LEGION.

I'd make the Black Tamarans be of mixed blood from the two peoples and then go with the rest of your ideas, but you, of course, can do what you want with the info.

Thanks! I kinda like the idea of building off of Komand'r's 'unique' status, sort of like how Mekt Ranzz is so strongly defined by his singleton status on Winath.

I also wanted to pick some 31st century alien heroes who weren't necessarily from a typically Legion-era alien race (such as the Tamaranians, or the Thanagarians).

I had read somewhere that Tamaran had been blown up, they resettled somewhere called 'New Tamaran' and then *that* got blown up too, but I just went with what I remembered of the planet, having been run by Blackfire for a bit in the Wolfman/Perez run, and having some occasional 'throwbacks' that couldn't fly (but still absorbed solar energy, hence Komand'r being able to be modified by the Psions to fire starbolts).

Maybe, over the last 1000 years, somewhere in the 1000 annual reality-rebooting crossover events that occured, Tamaran was un-destroyed!

Was it Superboy Prime's reverse-gendered clone, Supergirl Prime, punching reality? Was it X'Hal being reborn from the heart of Vega, using some sort of Durlan fusion-reaction to kickstart her back to life (and sanity) sort of like how an electrical shock can knock a human heart back into cycle? Who knows. Given the way the DCU works, and the frequent obliterations and reconstructions of places like Gotham City, Khandaq, Thanagar, Atlantis, etc., Tamaran was probably reconstructed and re-destroyed a couple dozen times in the next century alone!

For the purposes of the Black Watch, all that really matters is that they are on a planet named Tamaran (which may or may not be the original), and are descendents from Koriand'r and Komand'r's people.

More Heroes from Other Worlds!

From Cargg;

Trinary, unofficial Robotican 'ambassador' to Cargg, Trinary has abandoned her original name, having been 'assimilated' during the Robotican 'troubles,' and being one of the few survivors of the process to refuse to be cured of the changes made. Unwelcome on Cargg, as they find her appearance and demeanor ghastly (and her family in particular is aggrieved by her conversion). Can meld into a single unit, but rarely does, preferring to remain three heavily cyborged humanoids, connected in a single group mind by laser-like light flickering from the crowns of their heads. They are stronger and more durable than a standard Carggite, as their armored hide and mechanically-reinforced limbs would suggest, and have computer like mental processing abilities. They can use their laser-links to attempt to seize control of nearby machinery, or even to blind or 'reprogram' (hypnotize, with some sublimal information exchange) some humanoids! Additionally, they can re-wire their hands to deliver a potent electrical jolt.

Lifeline, born with no ability to triplicate, much later it was discovered that when he died (in an accident), a duplicate appeared nearby. Now he fights crime fearlessly, knowing that no matter what happens to him, he wakes up in a new body (generally within 10 yards) within moments of his death, ready to continue the fight.

Triple Sun When they unite, this Carggite transforms into a 3 meter across miniature sun, generating intense heat and light, and noticeable gravity. They can move along slowly in this form, a danger to all around them. After the fusion accident that burned away their fleshly form, they can only take on humanoid form by triplicating into three humanoid selves, each with their own solar-related powers. Separated, one can ignite into flames that do not harm him, and, with effort, fling fire a short distance from himself in a plume of burning hydrogen gas, the second can glow with blinding intensity light, and radiate it in specific areas in pinpoint beams, while the third generates gravitational attraction, allowing him to draw things to himself, or to repel himself from the ground and fly.

Wing, Mask & Comm Adventurous and independent as a young woman, one of her selves fell into an ice-crevasse on an expedition to the northern polar regions, and was badly hurt. Unwilling to leave her, her other two selves rappelled down to her and together sought another way out (unable to climb back with her). Instead they found a crashed alien escape pod (the source of the crevasse in the first place) that had been there for centuries, and inside, three small pods that *might* have been emergency beacons, or dangerous defensive weapons. They gambled and each activated a different pod, being flooded with nanites that granted them abilities. Wing's nanites reflected and redirected gravity around herself, allowing flight, and she can inject nanites into others to grant them flight as well, for a brief time (the more they use it, the shorter time the anti-gravityy charge lasts). Mask's nanites adapt her body to any environmental condition, and, by touch, can be used to adapt another's body to their surrounding environment for up to 30 days. Comm's nanites rewired her brain and nervous system to allow perception and transmission of radio frequencies, and by touch can wire others to be able to hear and transmit to her (although she can't give them the ability to overhear any frequency or broadcast on any frequency). Comm can also interface with machinery, or even animals, in this fashion, and download their data or influence their actions or 'jack' their senses. Unfortunately, the effects of the nanite injections have rendered them unable to merge, and they are forever seperate, although able to share their powers, allowing them to go on even greater adventures together, to the bottom of the sea or into orbital space, using their ability to share powers of flight, life support and communication.

From 'Great Mother Ocean;'

Starback, Axeun of Hyrkraius has the gift of spaceworthy flight using fire generated by igniting the methane aura he constantly generates and replenishes. Even when not using his powers, his nodes glow with ruddy heat, rendering him inscrutable (and intimidating!) by his people's standards, as they cannot read his mood and his communications lack emotional context. He can manipulate his fiery aura to generate solar-flare-like prominences that arc towards foes as if alive, avoiding intervening obstacles. He can generate fiery discharges from any part of his 'corona,' allowing him to change course and 'jink' with great agility in the vacuum of space.

Wow, I'm floored by how awesome all your ideas are.

I can't even pick which ones I like best. Colony Queen, Cosmic Girl and Augment are among the most unique, though.


From Naltor -

Dreamcatcher doesn't have any dreams of her own. Instead, she steals the dreams of others and brings them to life. The stronger and more vivid the dream, the sooner it will come true.

Her family learned this the heard way when a stampede occured outside their home in the city. Dreamcatcher's sister declared, "Just like in my dream!"

They thought it was just normal Naltorian precognition at work. But when a guest from Earth stayed at their home - and dreamed of a rain of fish during the hot Naltorian summer - and the town found itself submerged in flopping piscine creatures - they guessed the truth.

Given the unreliability of her powers, Dreamcatcher elected to become a doctor. When her patients dream of getting well, she tries to catch those dreams in order to cure them.

From Aleph:

Thanot, Kinetix's brother, was empowered by another artifact their mother found. Instead of bringing objects to life, he can bring living things to a temporary death... His touch transforms them into inert materials. Diamond, coal, wood, what have you. He can restore them, but must do so after six hours or else they permanently turn into said material.

He has wisely avoided trying to turn things into liquid or gaseous forms.

He's been working as a paramedic. By transmuting accident victims into inanimate objects, he can "freeze" their injuries until they are transported to a hospital. He was also awarded a medal for ssving several people by turning them into iron during a flash flood. Seeing the changes his sister Kinetix has undergone has made him adamantly opposed to superheroing himself, though.

Ooh, I like Dreamcatcher! That's a neat power.

Thanot's power is cool, and I like how he has found a way to use a life-stealing power to save lives. (I was thinking of giving him a death-related power as well, only to fine-tune his ability to kill stuff to target disease organisms, parasites or tumors or the like, without harming the rest of a person.)

Thanks, Set! I had to go back and edit Dreamcatcher's origin, when i realized that the stampede could simply be her sister's precognition at work (however unlikely a stampede was).

Re Thanot, I thought death vs. life too, but I also wanted to relate his powers to inanimate objects.

I'm glad this thread got bumped!

Trinary, Dreamcatcher and Starback are all pretty awesome (though admittedly Starback does make my inner 12 year old snigger with the idea of flying by virtue of lit methane)...I like the idea though that Starback would be considered pretty intimidating to a Hykraian for reasons that would most likely not register for an offworlder all that much...

Here are some more contributions:

The White Sage is an enigmatic figure from Bgtzl. Cloaked in white robes which obscure his identity and give him a supernatural appearance, he has the same intangibility abilities as any native Bgtzlr with a little something extra...he has the psychometric ability to experience the recent history of anything or anyone he passes through.

The White Sage will often appear at homicide scenes and be able to identify a victim's murderer by walking through their corpse. Obviously this only works if the victim themselves was aware of their murderer, but even if they died unaware of who killed them he can usually gain enough clues to investigate further. Because he psychically experiences what happened as if it were happening to himself, he has had to learn to distance himself emotionally from other people and he therefore comes across as quite aloof and even creepy to anyone around him...he is unmistakably one of the good guys though, as he always uses his abilities to avenge crimes and help the innocent.

Tranquility is the resident superheroine of Earth's own moon. Amoris Riccioli was the first child born to the Lunar colony, and very soon after her birth her family realised she was something special. She was always a placid child, and those around her found her presence to be calming. As she grew older, she learned that she had a form of empathic influence over others. She could calm people down if they were angry, soothe their pain or grief, and even inspire feelings of loyalty and love where those feelings never existed. She never used these abilities selfishly though, only ever to help those around her.

As time went on, something else became apparent about Amoris. She never got sick, she healed quickly from any injury, and she aged extremely slowly. Even now, hundreds of years after the moon was settled, she physically appers to be in her late teens.

She always acted in the best interests of those around her anyway, but inspired by the Legion of Superheroes Amoris has recently designed a costume for herself and adopted the codename Tranquility, after the feeling she inspires in others (and also for the Sea of Tranquility, her birthplace). She has always felt a strong sense of connectedness to her lunar home, and never felt the slightest urge to leave. This is for the best, as what nobody (including Amoris) realises is that her powers are the Greek goddess Selene's final gift to humanity before her pantheon left Earth's plane completely. They will only function while she is on the lunar surface, and if Tranquility were ever to leave the moon her centuries of life would catch up with her and she would die of old age in moments.

I wonder if we should attempt to write a fic using all these characters we're creating.

From Starhaven -

Spirit Guide is a a much sought-after "guide" because she can see the paths people may take in their lives. A session with her will involve her walking you through the potential consequences of major life choices you may make. She can even suggest several paths you may consider in the distant future. She's a precog, in a way, but focuses on the "maybes" instead of the "definitelies".

Oh gosh, there's just too many! Still, it could be fun to use some of them!

.

From Braal;

Doctor Polaris, M.D., this ambitious and supremely confident young woman was born with weaker than racial average magnetic abilities, which she has made the best of by learning to use them on a micro-scale (which normal Braalians can rarely do, lacking the fine control), allowing her to read and manipulate signals in machinery, re-program computers, or even affect the human(oid) nervous system, causing paralysis or even jerky physical manipulation. Barely able to lift a couple of kilos off the ground, magnokinetically, but able to interfere with brain functions and knock people out with a touch, or a few moments concentration, at relatively close range. Keen magnetic perception and training allow her to function as a living MRI, or 'EMP' living organisms. She is a trained physician, and has some medical applications for magnetism as well, to prevent shock or accelerate healing (to a very limited degree!). Is well-aware that there used to be a villain with magnetic powers named Dr. Polaris, and ironically says that she's just following in the footsteps of Brainiac 5, reclaiming the name of a villain from the dustbin of history.

I like the White Sage's concept. It's kind of like a more passive version of what Quislet does, but instead of passing into an object and seizing control of it (and eventually destroying it), White Sage passes through a character and sort of let it all sift through him on a molecular level, learning all about it.

Tranquility's ties to Selene are very cool! I made up a 'Moon Maiden' ages ago in some other thread, but I think I like the link between Tranquility's powers and the Sea of Tranquility and Selene better. That's some nicely tied-together backstory! (The aging-to-death if she leaves the moon thing could suck for her, though!)

.

From the Sorcerer's World (not a hero, by any stretch of the imagination!);

Mauvais Mal Sang is a blood mage. By preparing an item with a few drops of his own blood, he can manipulate it via spells that simulate telekinesis, pyrokinesis or weather control effects. He can make 'flame powder' or 'alchemist's fire' for instance, or a sealed clay pot that when opened releases a great cloud of fog, or a sack that produces a gust of wind, or a 'winged knife' or enchant his staff to allow him to fly (as long as he holds on tight!), or do the same to his clothing (much safer!). He's also a whiz at both magical and mundane arts of blood analysis and can manipulate another person's mind or body (or spy on them, read their emotions, etc.) by getting his blood on or in them. Getting his hands on someone elses blood allows him to do all sorts of divinations upon them. Through direct blood manipulation he can cause someone he's touching to experience excruciating pain (or pleasure!), and can heal or harm, to a limited extent (pain is caused by manipulating flow of blood telekinetically, or by heating it up pyrokinetically, or by *turning blood to water*. He didn't start out intending to be a 'super-villain,' but definitely a charismatic problem character, as he's got a blood cult and uncertain ambitions... If the Legion foils his plans, he's likely to become the Legion of Super-Villains go-to person for magical solutions. (Would be Brother Blood, for the new century, works off of Sorcerer's World, for the most part, attempting to build his cult.) Carries an assortment of notched knives for ritual bloodletting.

I like that Spirit Guide is less of a costumed adventurer, and more of a 'person with powers' who serves as more of a plot element, offering counsel and guidance to a character, rather than running around solving crimes and getting into fistfights. It's a neat practical power, and the sort of thing that might be good at averting crimes before they happen (by steering lost or confused or misguided people towards better paths in life).

It's kind of where I was going with Link, but he's uber-specialized in dealing with Winathian singletons, whereas Spirit Guide's counsel can help all sorts of folk.

.

From Titan;

Obyria Sajh, 'the Titanian Supergirl.' Obyria has developed the ability to use her natural telepathy to communicate at ranges of several thousand kilometers (most Titanians are limited to a couple hundred yards, or, at most, a kilometer or two), although she does not have the ability to deeply probe minds, telepathically 'shout' to mental blast others, edit memories, create illusions, etc. (Like most Titanian telepaths not named Imra, her telepathy is purely for communication, and she can no more use telepathy to seize control of another persons' mind or body than the average Earth-human could shatter a glass by singing at it.) She also has a greatly developed gift for mind over body / biofeedback techniques, which most Titanians can use only to meditate and block mild pain and the like, but she can use to place her body in a state of near-stasis, while yet remaining active, allowing her to ignore extremes of temperature and pressure, hunger, pain, thirst, fatigue, etc. and even to survive in the vacuum of space unprotected (her limited telekinetic gifts even help her to retain body heat and shield off the effects of ambient radiation). Finally, she has the rarest of Titanian psychic gifts, that of telekinesis, although she can only affect her own body, and use her power to levitate herself from the ground. Most Titanians with this gift can only levitate while meditating, a meter off of the ground, but she can propel herself from the ground into orbit with her power, and fly at speeds comparable to hovercraft. While something of a legend on Titan, she smiles at the thought of joining the Legion, since her amazing powers are matched by the 'abilities' that every Legionnaire is handed upon acceptance, in the form of their Legion Flight Ring, transsuit and telepathic earplugs...

More from Titan! Why should Earth, Xanthu and Lallor be the only worlds to have their own hero teams?

Introducing, Team Titan, a group of (mostly) Titanian telepaths who specialize in different forms of highly specific telepathic perception and manipulation, each an expert without peer in their specific area of focus.

Adjudicator Wei Krim specializes in perceiving and manipulating sensory information. He is able to interact with / manipulate / perceive sensory information *before* it reaches the brain, bypassing most telepathic / psychic defenses or perceptions. A near photographic memory and special interface implant (built by his teammate, Jianni) that allows him to store sensory information (his own or that received from others) into special holo-crystals. Illusions, blinding foes, spying on people by tapping into their senses without them knowing it are his specialties when action is called for. He's an older curmudgeonly sort, fanatically law-abiding, of Tibetan ancestry.

Operative Dren MacLaren, focuses his telepathic talent to perceive & manipulate emotions. He plays the role a promiscuous playboy, with a reputation for using his powers to 'get lucky,' but does not abuse his powers in this manner (although he does manipulate his *own* emotions, to fill himself with self-confidence!). Generally mistrusted by anyone who hasn't met him, due to his openly working for the Titanian government intelligence and security apparatus, and doesn't use his powers to change this perception. Prevents fights when possible by reducing fear and aggression, but once it's *on,* he cuts loose with fear and uncertainty attacks (while bolstering allies confidence). Young redhead of uncertain ancestry.

Dr. Oro Milosynos, highly skilled at perceiving and manipulating memories, is a middle-aged slightly out of shape professional psychiatrist of African ancestry. He's very friendly and acts more like Operative MacLaren is expected to act, becoming everybody's confident, even against their better judgement. The Operative is a red herring, to draw attention away from the good Doctor's own ties to Titanian intelligence and the military. In combat, the good Doctor makes foes forget why they are foes, how their weapons work, or even how to walk and talk, in extremis!

Jianna Mirali wears a special helmet of her own design that allows her to telepathically interface with & control machines. She's the youngest member of the team, a mixed heritage Asian with tattoos and piercings and multi-colored hair, drawing attention away from her keen technical mind. She carries storage media allowing her to download information telepathically to her own data-stores, and has an assortment of nonlethal weapons, some of her own design (such as psi-grenades that generate 'psychic static' and disorient unshielded telepaths). She could also call herself 'doctor,' as she has two doctorates (and would have a third if she didn't get bored and tell off her advisor, telling him that she knew more about his field of study than he did, which was true, if not the most diplomatic approach...), but finds the notion pretentious (and gently chides her teammates by only addressing them by their titles, in a sarcastic tone of 'voice').

Prince Anaxander, the only non-Titanian (and non-telepath) on the team, is a Muus, an anthropomorphic rat-man, descended from the hyper-intelligent rats of Dakota created during the 'Big Bang' on Earth, 1000 years ago (how they got off-world, nobody knows). He's a Psi-Null, immune to all psychic forces, and able to disrupt all psionic energy in an area, or specifically focus to negate the psychic abilities of a single individual at range. He is not really a prince. (All Muus lie about that sort of thing, making up fanciful titles or honorifics for themselves when off-world, which few are, as they are still developing the combustion engine on their 'home-world,' a ruined world that was abandoned after a World War involving biological, chemical and nuclear weapons devastated it. The hardy Muus live in the ruins of that civilization, and number in the hundreds of thousands, mutated in various ways, from rat-sized to horse-sized, rat-shaped to fully-anthropomorphic to tauroid!)

I find your Team Titan idea VERY interesting! Not just how you split the telepathic abilities amongst them, but also how you came up with personalities to match. I'd definitely read a mini about them.

Yes, I see the link with Link. But whereas Link "suggests" via synch, I see Spirit Guide as more of a counselor. People go to her and ask, "I have choice A and choice B. What could happen if I choose A?" And Spirit Guide shows them the possible outcomes. And Spirit Guide will "show" them how. She's very hands off and doesn't have any powers of influence at all.

In the Wheel of Time series, there are devices which can show certain people the possible outcomes of their actions. That's what I was aiming for with Spirit Guide

I like Link's concept, though. Very shades of grey, so to speak.

Thanks!

Telepathy is an interesting power, because it can go so many ways. Mentalla, for instance, was said to specialize in direct mind control (as does Saturn Queen, apparently). Saturn Girl is just generally good at everything. But even an above-average Titanian might have a specialty, whether it be memory or sensory perception or linking up with animals / affecting sentience itself or manifesting people's hopes & fears or dream manipulation or linguistic functions, etc. There's tons of possibilities!

Yeah, Titan has proved to be a goldmine!

From Colu:

I remember the Postboot Colu was said to prize theory over applied research. My concepts revolve around Coluans who subscribe to various theories of intelligence.

Brainiac 8 of the Brainiac line hit upon a novel idea her ancestors never did. She believed in Howard Garnder's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, and was able to devise a way to allocate her twelve thought-tracks among these 8 at will.

She can have up to a 10th level functioning in each of these 8:

•Visual-spatial Intelligence
•Verbal-linguistic Intelligence
•A•Logical-mathematical Intelligence
•Interpersonal Intelligence
•Musical Intelligence
•Intra personal Intelligence
•Naturalistic Intelligence

The only reason she doesn't reach up to a 12th in each is so she has some "juice" remaining for the other 7.

The applications are boundless. With a 10th level interpersonal intelligence, she has been known to break even the most hardened criminals in interrogation, and to negotiate agreements between planets who have been warring for generations. A 10th level in musical intelligence allows her to hypnotize or heal the mind with her compositions. When she focuses on visual-spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence she can mimic the movements of animals and has superb athletic ability.

Ooh, that's intriguing! Even if she wasn't a 'Brainiac' with a 12th level intelligence, a bog-standard Coluan willing to devote their brain-power to something other than Brainy's exclusive (and limiting) focus on Logical-Mathematical intelligence could be very interesting.

A Coluan focusing on Interpersonal intelligence would be terrifying good at 'schmoozing' and social manipulations (and yet also empathic enough to be likely to use their insights for good!).

A Linguistic genius could be like Cypher, from the New Mutants.

I had considered Coluans who focused on Tactical/Strategic/Military studies (imagine a Coluan Sun Tzu!), or Social manipulation, or even Finance (Ferengi, eat your hearts out!), or Governance (the ultimate societal engineer, the consumate politician!), but breaking it down using the Theory of Intelligence is inspired!

Since you guys have brought up Coluans, can anyone point me to a source that explains just what the heck a "level of intelligence" is in the DCU? Or some sort of benchmarks for what the different levels may do? I've never understood the term, and don't recall where humans are on the scale, if it's ever been mentioned.

Traditionally, Earth-humans are 6th level, normal Coluans are 10th-level, and Brainiacs are 12th-level.

I'm pretty sure the Coluans themselves invented the measure of levels, so I've long suspected that, much like IQ tests in the real world, there's a certain amount of bias in the measurement.

Solar powered Kryptonians are 8s?

I remember they are exponential measurements.


Except I think IIRC they redid the measurements when ... Threeboot Brainiac 5 saying he was a 12 ... and all of Earth was a 6. which sounds weird ... or something like that.

I would refer to the previous system.

I thought humans were 3rd level, and Kryptonians 5th, on the Coluan scale? (Making Superman 100x smarter than Batman, which is hilarious, considering how Batgod is portrayed...)

If humans are 6th, and normal Coluans 10th, that means that the average Coluan is only 10,000x smarter than the average human! (Although Brainy is a cool million times smarter than an average human!)

As I understand it, each 'level of intelligence' is supposed to be an order of magnitude above the one before it. So someone with a '5th level effector intelligence' was 10x smarter than someone with a '4th level' intelligence, and only 1/10th as smart as someone with a '6th level' intelligence.

Now how the hell are normal earth humans supposed to write characters millions of times smarter than they are? And how are we to know when they're writing them well?

How do characters that smart ever make mistakes? (But boy, DO they!)

These are poor fictional decisions for ongoing storytelling in my opinion. Like saying the Green Lanterns have been around for millions of years. Same with the old Jedi Order. Unnecessary and it hampers future stories without any more benefit than saying they've been around for say, 2000 years. Or even 5000.

Harrumph.

At least they've finally caught on a bit and admit the Guardians' 3600 sectors do not actually comprise the infinite universe.

Comics (and sci-fi) are kind of infamous for being clueless about scale. Never mind that being strong enough to lift a truck over your head would make you pretty much unstoppable in a fist-fight, Superboy has to be able to drop-kick the moon into a new orbit. Every thing has to be ridonkulously bigger and tougher and crazier than the last ridonkulously big and tough and crazy thing, until it's blown past ludicrous speed and well past caricature and possibly even past plaid.

And so, in that sort of comic book world, a guy who is the intellectual equal of *ten* men seems kind of lame. Brainy instead has to be as much smarter than a normal person as Superboy is as much *stronger* than a normal person. Ten times isn't enough. A hundred times isn't enough. To be 'super,' he's got to be a *million* times smarter than a normal person (and even then, Superboy's probably several trillion times stronger than a normal person, at least...).

And all the mega-disasters have to threaten the entire universe!, and yet be fixed by something that's terribly specific to Earth, which is one of 10,000,000 inhabitable planets in one spiral arm of one of 10,000,000 galaxies... Gosh, good thing that the disaster didn't happen on one of the 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets that Superman's never heard of! We'd be screwed!

It's all terribly escalatory, to the point where the numbers just become meaningless, and you get stories from the old days where the Specter and one of his villains were *throwing planets at each other.* (Much, much later also done by the Celestials attacking Infinity-Gauntlet-wearing Thanos, with better art.)

For a time, the Legion was getting inflationary as well. Shadow Lass was able to block out the light of an entire star, while Sun Boy was, at the same time, able to generate sun-intensity light, to fool some spacegoing critters who navigated through an area. Element Lad was able to change the atmospheric content of the entire planet Earth (to the great discomfort of tens of thousands of Daxamites). In the Threeboot, Star Boy and Light Lass, with the help of some machinery, re-balance the gravitational forces of the solar system! Pretty cosmic stuff!

Sometimes I like that sort of thing, other times I can see it becoming problematic. (Element Lad has recently been toned way back, requiring Earth-Man's help and a Green Lantern ring boosting their power, to perform that same stunt, which is still vastly more impressive than his Threeboot incarnation, who could only change stuff he touched, and only for sixty seconds!)

I try to avoid Superman/Specter sorts of power levels when designing characters, just because, narratively, they are trickier to write for, and, as a role-playing gamer, 'party balance' is hard-coded into my DNA.

At least with super-strength it's fairly clear what it means to say that someone is a million times stronger than the average human. If the average human can lift 200 lbs, they can lift 200 million lbs. It's hard to even make sense of what "a million times smarter than the average human" would even mean. I have doubts that it even makes sense to quantify intelligence in that way.

Sometimes it seems like what they have mind is that he has more computational power than human beings (hence, his "computer mind" as it's sometimes called), but that's something very different than intelligence.

Yes, I had the same thought, that it was simply a larger amount of RAM and a faster processor, so to speak. But then nevertheless they do use the word intelligence.

Anyway, I'm certainly used to the physical hyperbole, but the mental ones just don't translate into anything that works for me. At least not something they've ever conveyed in action.

They do work well enough when you're 7 years old though!

With the Authority crew, characters for whom hyperbole was their thing, became more and more popular, until it seemed like more and more characters were being re-defined as abstract boasts, instead of 'super-powers.' (That, and characters being able to utterly wreck something that vastly outpowered them a mere 5 minutes ago, by dint of 'being badass' or 'being more ruthless' or something lame like that, like some Schwarzeneggar movie where striking a pose and quipping a quip makes bad-guys fall over dead.)

Everytime I hear that Aquaman 'controls 2/3rds of the life on the planet' as if that somehow is relevant to someone standing on dry land, I cringe. Sure, it sounds more impressive that way than saying, 'he talks to fish,' but having characters (like Midnighter, or Morrison's take on Batman) who are 95% hat and only 5% cat, just bug me. It wasn't cool when it was Psylocke bragging about 'the focused totality of her telepathic powers' or Dawnstar never-shutting-up about her 'infallible tracking powers that got me into the Legion,' and it isn't any cooler now that it's Midnighter or Aquaman or whomever living and dying by their trendy oh so very precious catch-phrases.

Brainiac 8 = awesome! I would love to see some more creative applications of Coluan intelligence than what we generally get

Triplicate Boy: Dru Lorgo is a Carggite who was born without the ability to triplicate which is native to his planet.

Some Carggites are occasionally born with this odd genetic quirk. It's seen on par with being a little visually/hearing-impaired; it can make life more challenging in certain respects, but it's not like it's completely debilitating.

Dru however can do something that no other Carggite has ever been capable of. He can triplicate anything else he touches (Editor's note: Carggite clothing is normally made of native organic fibres treated to respond to the wearer's power in kind...this is why their clothes triplicate when they do, but why for example Luornu has never created an extra couple of forcefield belts when they might have come in handy by just putting one on and triplicating...it took Brainy ages to figure out a way to attune even her flight ring/flight belt to her power).

Triplicate Boy seems to be limited to replicating anything up to his own body mass, and after approximately 12 hours the extra copies will simply vanish if he hasn't already dispelled them.

Anything he creates is an exact functioning duplicate of the original item. If he uses his triplication power on a sentient being, that being controls the second and third bodies as if they themselves had suddenly developed their own Carggite abilities.

Such an odd power does come in handy, but he's never really felt that it's quite Legion standard so he's happy just acting as a part-time hero on his own planet.

The Phage: A masked crimefighter on Somahtur. He has the ability to eradicate any virus or bacteria within his presence, a power which can have devastating effects on his fellow Somahturians who all possess a symbiotic relationship with these microscopic lifeforms.

Unlike his fellow Somahturian Infectious Lass, the man known only as the Phage has no desire to leave his homeworld. He also has a mild paranoia that if the UP got their hands on him, they would experiment on him to create a miracle cure for all diseases that would be abused by those in power.

The Phage is a Robin Hood type...he serves the common man, but generally distrusts any form of authority.

That's clever! I like how you tweaked the native Carggite ability to make something entirely new.

The ability to affect even people, could be incredible, if someone like Element Lad or Mon-El was present!

Also cool!

I always wanted to tweak the Somahturans by having them be the remains of the humanoids who either originally lived there, or of colonists who were infected and 'killed' by sentient viral hive-minds. It wasn't a malicious act, the colonies of micro-sentiences had always taken over larger (non-sentient) life-forms, in such numbers that each human-sized life-form was like an entire world to their people, and they didn't know until it was too late that the new host bodies that had become available to them belonged to creatures that were *already* sentient...

From the Dominator Throneworld;

Omniphage, Genetically modified, Omniphage has a thick torso, and his head has almost a dozen seperate mouths. In the center of his head, a massive snout like fanged mouth, large enough to engulf a smaller man's head, is filled with fangs stronger than steel, and is possessed of superhumanly strong muscles, giving it crushing force far greater than it's appearance would suggest. Below that mouth, in the middle of the neck, another mouth leads directly to the digestive system, and Omniphage can spit a mixture of digestive acids and enzymes that are too potent for his own body to contain, in their concentrated state. On the sides of his bull-like neck, six tube-like structures end in smaller mouths, with the shortest of them producing sounds too low for humans to register, the mid-length 'pipes' producing sound and speech in human ranges, and the highest-placed of these mouths generating souunds pitched too high for humans to hear. Working in tandem, these six throats can produce complicated multi-part harmonies, only partially audible to humans, that have a hypnotic sedative effect, causing people to become sluggish and suggestible. Atop the central mouth, placed where nostrils would be for most humanoids with a similar snout-like facial structure, a pair of smaller mouths can spray forth a paralyzing toxic mist that blinds and envenomes those struck, either in one or two thin streams of fluid that can travel up to 30 ft, or in a cone like spray of fine droplets that can fill an area in front of him. His final mouth is in the center of his dome-like forehead, and can generate powerful pulses of sound, usable for echolocation or sonar scans or even direct attacks, able to produce sonic pulses powerful enough to potentially rupture some internal organs, shatter eardrums or stun foes by damaging them internally. Tiny beady eyes provide only limited visual perception, but his incredibly advanced senses of hearing, taste, smell and thermal sensation (augmented by his many tongues, which are sensitive to scent and fluctuations in temperature) more than compensate for any visual shortcomings.

The other members of Dominator Super-Squad Six tend to regard Omniphage as a big, dumb brute, or walking bio-weapon, assaulting foes with globs of acid, sprays of toxin or punishing sonic assaults, but he is very intelligent, particularly in matters of linguistics and chemical analysis, and makes good use of his heightened sensory range, and ability to stupefy targets with his hypnotic 'backup chorus'.

While the sonic pulses from his upper-most mouth are not generally powerful enough to easily rupture most internal organs, certain external organs, such as eardrums, or, a particular favorite, eyeballs, are vulnerable to his attacks, and he is more than willing to cause permanant harm in this manner, as 'super-hero' means something quite different to the Dominator teams...

[Yes, this is a different version of Visi-Lad. Instead of having a half-dozen pairs of eyes, each with different functions, Omniphage as a bunch of different *mouths,* each with their own super-powers.

I leave to the readers imagination what sort of powers Polyphallic Pete would have...]

That's okay, I didn't plan on ever sleeping again.

Or being in a room with the lights off.

*_*

Heh. My other idea in that vein was Eyeful Ethyl's second cousin, Mouthy Myrtle, who has a dozen mouths and never shuts up.

Mouthy Myrtle totally needs to appear in a MLLASH picture, getting killed by Frenemy or Fembrain (or both!) for annoying them... (probably by having her many mouths stuffed with delicious pastries, in the Death of a Thousand Ding-Dongs)

See, now I came up with a totally different use for a dozen mouths.

From Orando (although currently operating on the Sorcerer's World);

Lady Lake inheritor of a mystical legacy from old Earth, the knight who calls herself Lady Lake wears medieval styled armor of advanced metal composite, and carries no visible weaponry. Her tabard depicts her personal crest, a blood-red sword crossed behind a silver-gray triangular shield that bears the sigil of a golden-yellow bowl pouring forth a white river. When she extends a hand and wills it so, sparkling energy manifests and coalesces into the form of a indestructible hand-and-a-half sword, with a blade of a ruddy magically resonant metal, that strikes with the magical force and skill of the hundreds of knights who have born it throughout the ages. A thought, and the sword dissolves and is replaced by an unadorned shield of reflective silvery metal, as indestructible as the blade, and that produces a magical shield of force that protects not only Lady Lake, but any who stand behind her, manifesting as a barely visible hemispherical sideways dome of force. The third relic that can be manifested, again, only by dissolving whatever one she holds into sparkling energy, and reforming it, is a golden bowl that contains glowing water. Water from the bowl serves to heal those who touch it or are annointed with it, washing away even grievous injuries, the effects of disease, exhaustion, privation, toxin or radiation poisoning, as readily as normal water sluices away dirt. By tipping the bowl in a direction and allowing the water to spill forth, she can also generate a wave of water that sweeps those near in that direction from their feet, and can extinquish flames, or cleanse an area of toxins or radiation.

Lady Lake's true identity remains a mystery to the people of Orando, as she does not remove her helmet in public, and has special dispensation from Queen Projectra to refuse to do so in the presence of anyone who would otherwise be able to demand her to do so.

Rumors swirl, some saying that she is a young noblewoman, afraid that her father will forbid her from serving as a champion in this manner, or that her father is scurrilous or ill-favored in some way, and Lady Lake does not wish them to gain in esteem from her actions. The most scandalous rumor is that she is no 'Lady' at all, but a mere commoner, and that the Queen, as is her occasionally-frustrating traditions-flouting wont, allows her to remain anonymous and call herself 'Lady.'

Well, yes, obviously she'd *own* at hot dog eating contests.

Sure, the Bismollan contestant would be a challenge, but he's only got the one mouth, and, if he goes *too* fast, he'll lose fingers.

Bismollan eating contests are serious business, y'all! Medics are standing by!

She's also all up in the kissing booth. No waiting in line for this lass, she can kiss all comers!

If only she didn't have a voice (er, voices) like a sack of cats, she could be a one woman choir!

Thanks for the comments on Brainiac 8, Set and raz Studies in Psychology make for fertile ground. Emotional intelligence, in particular, is undervalued.

PS - Triplicate Boy sounds EXTREMELY powerful! If the Legion ever let him in...!

And Omniphage just sounds scarily interesting.

From Talok III, Sariff Nor, called Skyborne.

At an early age, he found an ancient alien corpse in an underground cistern. The organic crystal bracers worn by the alien flowed from it's body to his own, and fused to his nervous system, becoming unremovable. From them, he could generate propulsive force, with a distinctive 'wing' like appearance, forming behind his arms and propelling him into the air. For the first few meters from his outstretched arms, the force is solid and powerfully repulsive, allowing him to block incoming attacks with ease, or to strike someone with them and hurl them back with force similar to that of a jet engine (the counterforce of such an effect paradoxically not affecting him, when he choses to do this). A mostly intangible manifestation that resembles white tendrils of mist extends another five meters or more, when he's in flight, and can trail behind him for a kilometer or more. A faint white fog also steams off of him, when the wings are manifested, and he is protected from the thin cold atmosphere of the upper skies, and from the effects of air friction when he travels at speed.

He later learned that his power works equally well underwater, forming inky black 'wings' that appear fluid instead of wisps of white fog, and with a crawling inky aura that protects him from the pressure, cold and airlessness of the deep ocean, as well as enhancing his vision, allowing him to navigate the sunless deep. Only by accident did he learn that his aura and wings will also function in outer space, protecting him from the radiation, cold and lack of pressure or atmosphere, and manifesting as intricate lines and curves of white light streaming behind him. While he has come to love exploring the oceans with this aspect of his powers, he is terrified of travelling through space, and has only once made the trip from Talok III to 'sister-world' of Talok VIII under his own power, preferring to commute between worlds of the Talok system by commercial shuttle.

By necessity, Skyborne has become quite skilled at blocking anything up and including blasterfire with his force-wings, and moving in close enough to 'clothesline' foes while he flies amongst them, all without touching the ground. He has also found the visible manifestations, whether 'mist' or 'ink' or 'swirly lights,' to be useful for obscuring the vision of others, and he seems to have no difficulty navigating through the streams of fog (or ink, etc.) that he leaves behind.

Skyborne sounds awesome! I love the visual of his power, and it's carrying on the proud DC tradition of heroes using alien equipment as established by such fine precedents as Hal Jordan, Lana Lang and Jaime Reyes.

Thanks! The visual was indeed what sold me on that power. Ever since Jean Grey flew up out of the water with her big fire wings, I've loved the idea of energy wing like structures.

I chose the alien tech to fit the only other hero I knew of from Talok III, the alien Starman, Mikaal Tomas. Being a non-Legionnaire hero, it was totally fine for him to have device-granted powers, as well.

Also not a hero, and also from Titan, which is apparently crawling with super-types, in my head;

'Party Boy' (a name he never uses) is Tolin Xiraph, the sole son (and clone) of Fenar Xiraph, head of Xiraph Verti Enterprises, a prominent Titanian telepathic defense contractor. Too busy to have kids 'the old fashioned way,' the Sr. Xiraph had a clone of himself decanted, and mid-way through the child's youth, discovered a fluke effect of his telepathic potential is that he uncontrollably broadcast the effects of any mind or mood altering effect to all around him (first discovered with an energy drink). After years of trying to teach him to suppress this ability, the disciplinarian elder Xiraph gave up and suggested that he find a practical way to capitalize on it, thinking perhaps a job in pharmacological research, or some sort of substance-abuse therapy. Tolin had another idea, and instead took advantage of his ability to go to wild parties, and partake of controlled substances, 'sharing' the effect of whatever he was on with everyone around him. It was almost immediately discovered that, while high on sensory-affecting drugs and 'broadcasting,' other feelings and sensations were shared as well, when an attractive fan of the effect he was sharing gave him a passionate kiss, and the entire room got to share that, and what followed, too.

Tolin is now invited to *all* the cool parties, as drug designers and 'hospitality professionals' compete to have him sample their wares, broadcasting them to everyone present, and advertising their 'product' to partygoers who might not be willing to pay for an untested product (or might be unwilling to sample anything that would remain in their body chemistry later, due to their jobs, making him popular at soirees hosted by the sorts of people who simply couldn't enjoy drugs any other way, due to their security clearances, etc.).

After the crash, he puts his telepathy-dampening helmet back on and goes home to his disappointed father, because he's well aware that *nobody* wants to be his best friend or enthusiastic lover when he comes back down to reality and the crushing depression returns...

Set i'm loving everyone of your creations!

Thanks! I had a bunch written up, at first, but I'm saving a few for a fanfic (that I may never write, since I'm in the middle of one, and in the plotting stages of another...).

Others just sort of pop up, like this latest Titanian, or the Carggite sisters who can grant powers of flight, communications or adaptation to others, or the Dominator Super-Squad Six (of which Omniphage is the only one I've posted, so far) or the Sorcerer's Seven, a team of mages / mystical creatures operating from the Sorcerer's World (of which Lady Lake is the only one I've posted).

I love the ideas that others have posted, as well. I tend to think along certain lines, and never would have imagined bringing up new heroes from Zwenn, for instance!

Well i can't wait to see more of these if you get a chance.

and your right! the Zwenn heroes are great too!

honestly i'm just amazed at all the talent put forth on this thread!

From the Sol system asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter;

Legends have been told about the Haunted Spacesuit since mankind first began mining the resources of the asteroid belt. Over the last seven centuries, there have been at least forty sightings of the space-suited figure, always arriving when a lone prospector or escape pod or damaged habitat module is in distress, drifting in from the dark of space using only the small jets from his ancient suit, a suit that, even when he was first seen, appeared out of date, like something from man's first expeditions into space. Witnesses claim that the suit bears the name 'Gillespie,' on a tag, and has a visible breach on the torso, leg and an arm, as well as a cracked faceplate, and one eyewitness swears that he got close enough to see into the faceplate, where a vacuum-dessicated corpse, glowly faintly from some sort of phosphorscent lichen, was the only occupant of the Haunted Spacesuit...

In his many appearances, none of which have been documented, due to a tendency of recording equipment to fail mysteriously when he is present, the Haunted Spacesuit has displayed superhuman strength, freeing trapped individuals, or cutting away entrapping debris, or making modest repairs to damaged ship components with a welder attached to his suit. Both welder and his suit's thrusters produce an eerie green flame (which never seem to run out of fuel), and when his silent task is completed, he turns and accelerates back into the void, to disappear back into the asteroid belt, until some hapless soul again needs his help.

Spacers who work the Belt, when they've had a bit too much synthale, speculate on who or what the Haunted Spacesuit is, or why he appears to held stranded spacefarers in the belt. The popular rumor is that he was the ship's mechanic on the New Destiny, a ship of one hundred souls that crashed with all hands lost due to shoddy maintenance in the belt 800 years ago, and that the Haunted Spacesuit must save as many souls as were lost to his previous neglect, before his body can finally rest...

Running with the creepy 'undead heroes' theme, from Ganymede;

The Jupiter Station colony on Ganymede is sometimes called 'the Roanoke of Space,' after the mysterious disappearance of the 127 colonists eight months after the colony was established. The colony's chief engineer had reported to Earth that the transmitter relay was going to be down for 48 hours for repair, and after a week of no contact, a cargo ship was re-routed to see if they were experiencing difficulties. The cargo ship reported that there was no power at all in the colony. Every building lay open to the nearly airless cold of Ganymede, even the greenhouses, where the crops planted months before lay frozen and brittle. Every computer was wiped clean of data and powerless, with even the chemical backup batteries filled with nothing but heavy water. Only a single body was found, lying on the ground in the middle of the colony, wearing nothing but shorts, as if going for a stroll on a beach, and when the body was returned to Earth, it was noted that he wasn't any of the recorded colonists. A DNA test confirmed that he was the son of two of the colonists, one of whom was eight months pregnant at the time of their last contact with what was to have been the first child born on Ganymede, but how the young man had come to be in his late teens, when he shouldn't even have been born yet, and what became of his parents (and the other 125 colonists) remained a mystery.

It was even more of a mystery when he woke up, a literal Boy Zombie, whose body had no signs of clinical life, save when he touched a living person, and temporarily gained living qualities (such as body heat and circulation), at the cost of leaving the 'donor' weak and exhausted. By touch, he could draw enough energy to put others into a state of stasis that was nearly indistinguishable from death, and once he had 'awoken,' he proved to be animate and communicative, even while his body was 'dead as a doornail.' It was theorized that he could use his powers to draw so much life-energy as to kill someone, but he refused to test that theory, even on cloned tissue. He had no memories of anything that would help to resolve the mysteries of his appearance (or the disappearance of the Jupiter Station colonists), and, after exhaustive and frustrating amounts of research, has been allowed to pursue his own 'life,' as it were.

As a corpse, he's a bit stronger than you'd expect, and surprisingly resilient, although he does not heal damage that he suffers, unless he 'borrows' life-energy from living creatures (and, once he does, he heals at a greatly accelerated rate, particularly if there are multiple donors). He's found these traits, as well as his immunity to various environmental conditions, useful at times, and has some experience doing rescue work, since he can function in the depths of space, the bottom of the ocean, a toxic bioweapons zone, or the middle of a radioactive containment breach, without fear of 'dying' from the adverse conditions.

He's a personable fellow, for an ambulatory corpse who can steal life-energy from other people, and has an assortment of odd friends, who find his condition 'cool,' and volunteer to donate life-energy to him when he wishes to experience things like eating food. At first, he worried that repeatedly drawing life-energy from these friends might be harmful, but the only side-effects he's noted are a tendency to dress in black, smoke clove cigarettes and use words like 'ennui.'

lol love this side affect!

Random other Dominator 'super-heroes,' from the Dominator Super-Squad Six. (Note, there aren't six of them. They are 'super-squad six' because they are the sixth of the super-squads...)

Puppeteer is small, the size of a child, and has long thin limbs that end in skeletal splayed hands and feet with long talons. His hands and feet have microscopic barbs that allow him to cling to almost any surface, and he has a pair of 'hyper-adrenaline' glands that can give him short bursts of incredible speed, strength and resistance to pain (only about 30 seconds a day, so he has to ration out these bursts very carefully), as well as the ability to alter his coloration and manipulate his body temperature to become effectively camouflaged versus vision and thermal imaging.

But these are all minor secondary powers. His true power is to merge his body and nervous system with that of another that he has touched, causing their skin, flesh and bones to shift and make room for him, and seizing control of their body through direct interfacing with their nervous system. The effect is viscerally horrifying, as his arms thrust deep into the back of his target and emerge from their own arms, as the flesh of their limbs merge, and his own bony hands lock onto their forearms. His legs wrap around their waist and his feet similarly fuse into their own upper legs (for a humanoid target), while his head sinks so deeply into the back of their own head that their face appears stretched and distorted over his own, with his conical Dominator head and sect-mark protruding from the top of their cranium, and his many needle-like teeth showing through their grossly stretched lips, given the 'ridden' victim a grotesque and tormented look of shock and surprise.

Typically, 'on assignment' as a 'Dominator hero' (quelling uprisings on Dominator vassal worlds, oppressing folk, attacking colonies too close to their borders, the usual), Puppeteer 'rides' some large creature, possibly native to whatever world he is operating on, as large and vicious as he can get his hands on (or, more accurately, in), and once that creature is in the thick of things, and taking fire from the local threat, he'll leap clear and seek a new target to 'ride,' leaving the pain-maddened animal to rampage indiscriminately (and probably die, in shock and confusion). He regards his humanoid 'rides' with no more sentimentality, and will discard one with alacrity if the situation looks hopeless, leaving it to die in his place, using a burst of speed and then camouflage to escape sharing its fate.

Also from the Dominator Super-Squad Six, the only female member of the team;

Photovore, whose powers were adapted from the plant-based biotechnology most comfortable to the Dominator gene engineers of the bio-sciences Sept, has the ability to absorb radiant energy and convert it towards growth. Her body appears skinless, with what appears to be exposed musculature the consistency of grained wood (although reddish-brown in color) and 'veins' of purple-black. When exposed to energy, not merely light, but even heat or electricity, her body explodes into rapid growth, swelling vastly in size and losing any pretense of humanoid form, becoming a massive pyramid of wood-hard 'flesh' with thorny whipping tentacles striking in all directions, capped by her swollen head. Depending on the amount of energy absorbed, and the local conditions, she can easily top 20 meters in height, with a base half that size, and vine-like tentacles that can extent another 10 meters from the base, with the greatly superhuman strength one would expect from that size and mass. She draws upon local resources to augment her growth, and grows fastest in damp areas with plenty of loose material, and yet she is not dependent upon those resources, being able to convert absorbed energy directly to new growth, at a reduced rate, allowing her to function even in the void of space, given an extraordinary source of radiant energy to absorb...

When the need for her vast bulk is done, or she has to relocate to another position, she peels her still humanoid body from the vast mass of extra growth, and leaves it behind, to decay at an accelerated rate.

The Super-Squad member called Fever is the most reckless and headstrong member of the team, because the experiment that granted him his powers is considered a dismal failure, and he knows that after a six month 'evaluation period,' he'll be 'recycled,' if he doesn't somehow manage to prove his worth...

His body has been seeded with a proteanic retrovirus that recognizes Dominator DNA, and works to sustain and protect it, while tearing apart any DNA that it does not recognize it and converting it into Dominator DNA. The intention was that, by merely touching a non-Dominator with a bloodied talon, or spitting in their face, his viral payload would seep into an alien and tear it apart at a genetic level, rewriting it in mere minutes into a lower caste Dominator minion, slavishly loyal to higher caste Dominators (such as Fever himself), and yet retaining any meta-genetic traits (such as super-powers), turning the powers of alien heroes to the service of the Dominators, permanantly.

The delivery systems worked fine, and his gums and nails seep virus-tainted blood that he can spit or spray at someone with a flick of his fingers up to 30 feet away, with the blood even crawling short distances to infect nearby creatures, programmed to seek out body heat and the chemical traces of other living organisms. The virus even recognizes Dominator DNA and, instead of attacking it, can be used to heal and repair injured Dominators (particularly Fever himself, who regenerates damage at a prodigious rate).

Where it fails, is that the virus does not reprogram the DNA of aliens into servile sub-castes, it merely tears their alien DNA apart, causing them to die a horrible lingering painful death, which, while brutally effective at what it does, was not what it was *meant* to do.

Every time Fever watches his viral payload cause an alien victim to fall to the ground screaming as his body turns against him, he knows that if he does not prove his value through some remarkable success, he too will be torn apart on a genetic level, as the scientists who 'made' him reduce him to cellular soup, in an attempt to find out 'what went wrong.'

A Dominator telepath can't just be a normal looking Dominator with some Titanian DNA spliced in, because that would be too easy for the genetic artists of the science division.

Hydra is barely recognizable as a Dominator, having been adapted to a centauroid form, with four legs on a stretched body, and a second upper chest where a quadruped's head would be, with four additional arms, thin and spindly, and thirteen seperate braincases.

Behind his primary head (with mouth, eyes and caste-mark), are a pair of similar skulls anchored to his back and shoulderblades, then three more, then two more, then three more, then a final pair, so far down his back that they are anchored on the back and shoulders of his lower tauroid body. The array of skulls leaves him utterly inflexible and without any sort of neck-structure, but the skulls on the outer surfaces have their own small black beady eyes, allowing Hydra to see in all directions without needing to turn his 'heads.'

His centauroid body structure was needed to support these additional skulls, and each contains a brain dedicated entirely to housing a telepathic entity that resembles a bright green eel of psionic energy that snake forth from the tops his 'heads' to strike at distant foes. Unlike a typical telepath, he can telepathically assault a dozen foes at once, bringing to bear his 'full attention' (or, at least, the full attention of one of his thirteen brains) on each target individually. So much of these brains are devoted to housing these 'psychic serpents' that he, despite his thirteen brains, is only three or four times smarter than the average Dominator of his caste, and he occasionally comes across as 'a bit slow,' as he parallel processes between his many brains, and they do not always agree immediately on any given course of action, having slightly different personalities...

His preferred tactic in a fight is to move forward slowly, holding four interlocking durable chitinous energy-dispersing shields in his spindly limbs to protect himself from incoming attacks, while sending forth up to a dozen dazzling green telepathic 'eels' to psychically assault foes. A single 'eel' is enough to possess a mundane opponent, and their eyes turn bright green as they turn their attacks upon their allies, under his direction. When those his serpents have 'possessed' fall to the attacks of their own allies, the serpents writhe free from their bodies and seek out new targets, to continue their sortees. Each serpent has it's own mind, and while they are not individually rocket scientists, Hydra does not have to direct their actions, or 'concentrate' to keep someone under their possession, being free to dedicate his own telepathic skills to coordinating his allies, or seeking out useful information, while his 'serpents' handle their own individual battles.

Hydra has discovered that a serpent can 'die' due to counter-telepathic attack, or the extremely sudden death of the entity they are possessing. When this happens, he is weakened and stunned, and it takes up to a month to replace the 'lost' serpent. He is all too aware of how the scientists would react to this 'flaw' in his 'design,' and so has kept this vulnerability secret.

The sixth member of the Dominator Super-Squad Six goes by the name Seedling, and he gets pretty snotty if anyone mentions that he's basically the Dominator version of Chlorophyll Kid...

Unlike many of his teammates, he looks like a fairly standard member of his caste and Sept, although he's got a bit of a barrel gut, and his robes have a dozen openings, allowing him to reach the dozen marsupial-like pouch-slits along his sides and belly. In each pouch, a single seed, the size of a walnut, waits, and deeper in his stomach, dozens more await need.

He can toss a seed forth, each genetically engineered to be vastly more dangerous from the deadliest flora of hundreds of different worlds, and use his own powers to cause them to grow with incredible speed, and to continue through their, usually incredibly dangerous, life-cycle at an accelerated rate, by focusing his power upon them.

For nonlethal combat, he prefers to throw down seeds that sprout into roughly man-sized plants called vine lashers that shoot forth entangling vines and drag creatures captured to themselves, where great red leaves wrap around them and secrete toxins that place them into biochemical stasis. (Note that alien biochemistries may react oddly. The plant oxygenates it's captives, for instance, and a methane-breather like Tellus would be horribly poisoned to death by this 'nonlethal option.')

A variation of the same plant, carnivorus vine lashers, engineered to be much more lethal, has paralytic venomous thorny vines, and anyone dragged to the central plant is wrapped up and digested by enzymes and acids secreted by the leaves, instead of preserved.

A radically re-engineered version of a small 'vampire cactus' native to Talokk VIII sprouts under his direction to a meter wide, two-meter high barrel cactus with spines the length of arrows. Easily missed rootlets the size of pale human hairs snake out thirty feet from the cactus, and when stepped on or disturbed, the cactus shoots it's venomous barbed spines, also attached to the cactus by similar rootlets, that, like spider's web, are proportionally as strong as steel, at the disturbance.

The deadliest in his botanical arsenal, death-blooms sprout into elegant trumpet shaped white flowers on curlicued stalks, and the thick glistening red 'berry' that nestles between them is actually a primitive visual 'eyespot' organ. When it detects motion nearby, the flowers swivel and a golden mist of 'pollen' at the intruder. The 'pollen' is actually tiny seedlings, that, under the influence of Seedlings growth-accelerating power, shoot microscopic rootlets into the cells of any warm living body they land upon, voraciously devouring nutrients and liquids from the body. The effect, accelerated as it is, is fatal to a human sized target in less than a minute, and terribly painful, as the body is sucked dry by the ever-expanding mass of plant growth.

Within moments, the living target is a withered husk, it's bones being cracked open by the roots for the nutrients within, and new blossoms are unfurling above the body, a new danger to anyone else in the area...

Recognizing the extreme danger that both Kryptonians and Daxamites posed to their expansionist goals, the Dominion saved their 'best trick' for last. Adapting a Tamaranean vine, the monkey-strangler, which had evolved to be able to draw solar energy from Tamaranian mammals who absorbed it directly, Seedling can hurl a seed that expands into a vine-mass that wraps around his target, and if that target happens to be a creature that stores solar energy internally, the vine rapidly drains, absorbs and metabolizes that solar energy, weakening the target, and causing the vine-mass to grow at a vastly accelerated rate. A Tamaranian struck by such a seedling might well be crushed under the weight of a hundred kilos of plant matter, but a Daxamite or Kryptonian could find themself the center of a mass of wood and vine a hundred meters across, a threat to all around them, as well as themselves, as the tremendous amounts of solar energy in their cells fuel a monstrous explosion of plant growth, while also reducing their own power, leaving them weak and vulnerable. (Without Seedlings power to accelerate their growth cycle, such a parasitic effect might take months to cause harm, making the vine itself not that deadly, in it's native environment, no matter how much more effective the Dominators have made it through genetic engineering.)

Seedling likes to think of himself as leader of the Super-Squad Six, and none of the others seem to care enough to contradict him on the point.

The seventh and final member of the Dominator Super-Squad Six is Creche, whose body has become bonded with a spatial rift, allowing him to open a portal to 'innerspace' and release a dozen lower-caste bio-engineered warriors, each covered with chitinous armor, capable of extruding foot-long bone spikes from their palms, and carrying some sort of bio-weapon (guns that squirt acid, organic flechette rifles that throw dozens of poisonous quills, etc.). Creche's 'inner space' is disturbing and has a translucent organic appearance, as if those within it are actually within his body. His lower caste warriors are specially trained to remain mostly unconcious and fetal during 'storage,' and so avoid mental trauma, but other passengers, or those that he deliberately snatches and pulls into his extra-dimensional storage space, are not so lucky, often being traumatized by the experience.

Bizarrely, Creche can draw *himself* into his extra-dimensional space, which seems to have no disorienting effects on his own perceptions, vanishing and leaving behind only a hazy distortion in the air. From 'within' that spatial pocket, he can see dimly what occurs 'outside,' and even more the pocket around slowly, as strange shimmering distortion, that is, for the most part, immune to conventional attack, which he can use to effect an escape, or even pass through solid objects (or, in extremis, transport his entire team into or out of a situation, something they all wish to avoid, as they find the experience as disorienting as anyone else).

While 'inside himself' in this manner, the spatial distortion travels along at a relatively leisurely pace (not much faster than he could run), and is even more disorienting to passengers than normal when he 'steers' it through solid objects, or across the vacuum of space.

He has found occasions to use his portal creation power not only offensively (to absorb and 'swallow' people), but defensively as well, as physical attacks absorbed in this manner do not usually cause him harm (although they may well kill anyone currently 'inside' the space...).

That Dominator team is so frickin' creepy....I love them all!

Thanks! I'd been watching too many underseas documentaries when I came up with Hydra, who has that reef-like structure on his back and a baker's dozen telepathic 'eels' snaking out.

Puppeteer is the creepiest, IMO. Sticks his hands right in there and takes over your nervous systems!

I think I'm done with Dominator 'heroes' for a bit. There were three or four others, but I cherry-picked out the most interesting ones. After folks like Omniphage and Seedling, 'some Dominator that makes force fields' just doesn't cut it, yanno?

Bgztl-

Trapper -Neal Dinzya has the natural ability of his people to become intangible but he also has the ability to stop others from being intangible. he has a field around his body that disrupts Bgztlian's phasing abilities. the field stretches to a radius of 5 feet. But its dampening time is limited to a 30 seconds from first contact. his ability works much better in close or touching proximity. he can turn off their ability for 1 hour at a time, when he touches them. Because of this limitation he has taken to learning hand to hand combat.

another limitation of his power is that as he can not use both powers at the same time.

As he grew up he was inspired by the stories of Phantom Girl's adventures to try to help.

Ooh, another character whose powers are uniquely suited to situations on his home turf!

I like the idea that he can create a sort of interdiction zone or 'phantom anchor' to prevent a Bgtzln from phasing to escape.

This 'ghost' doesn't just rattle chains, he can tangle another Bgtzln up with them!

thanks! i'm glad yo like it.

yeah well i figured they had to have some way of catching criminals on Bgztl. so why not have someone who would have the natural ability to do that as well.

I've gotta agree with Razsolo those Dominators are definitely creepy!

wicked good job!

Having a dorky sense of humor, I might have named your Bgtzln 'Jawn Dinzya,' so that I could, in my head, think of him as 'Trapper Jawn.'

Making him a medical doctor would have been entirely optional.

Ooh, a Bgtzln phase-surgeon! "Hold on a sec, I'll get that tumor / bullet / baby / alien parasite right out of there!"

lol i love that!

Originally from Thanagar, but currently on the Sorcerer's World, as one of the 'Sorcerer's Seven;"

Lector Seb Khereti is a Thanagarian sorcerer-priest, part of a Thanagarian sect of mystics called the Arumin that ingest ever-increasing doses of nth metal as part of their spiritual evolution, with effects both mystical and physical. Only a meter-and-a-half tall (due to the side-effects of ingesting all that metal while growing up), and thickly built, the Lector is hairless but for a reddish goatee braided in a style that an Earther would find reminiscent of ancient Egypt and has skin so dark brown as to be nearly black. His dress as well is of white linen and golden nth metal, in 'faux Egyptian' styles (which he claims the Thanagarians inspired in their visits to ancient Earth).

His magics tap into the gravity affecting properties of nth metal, and he has incantations that increase or decrease the effects of gravity on others, although he prefers not to use these effects to fly. He crafts silver, coppery red or golden-colored protective tattoos of nth-metal infused inks, and amulets and effigies of nth metal, to focus his spells, which are often warding or protective effects. His rare offensive spells are to grapple foes in bands or chains of conjured metal, to 'nail them to the sky' by levitating them high in the air and leaving them floating there for hours, or to draw away their strength using effigies (tiny figurines of nth metal that become more animate as the target's body becomes as sluggish and restrained as if their limbs were heavy as metal).

In addition to being shorter, darker and less prone to taking flight than the stereotypical Thanagarian, the Lector is also quite friendly and has an earthy sense of humor, completing his utterly 'un-Thanagarian' nature.

From Naltor;

Due to the precognitive talents of its populace, the High Seer of Naltor has learned to keep many secrets from the rest of the United Planets, future information that would be unwise to share with peoples less able to deal with knowledge of predestiny. One such planetary secret is the existence of Dial L for Legion,.

What happened six hundred years in the future to so badly damage the legendary 'Hero Dial,' and what circumstances caused it to fall backwards in time, to be discovered by a Naltorian researcher into temporal mechanics, is unknown.

The lower 40% of the dial had been sheared away, and the upper right hand corner partially melted, leaving behind only the horizontal crossbar of the letter 'H' and the leftmost upper 'leg' of the letter, resembling now a capital 'L.' Even this fragment retained great power, and when turned over in the hand of its current bearer, Naltorian officer Benem Morr, the 'L-Dial' transforms him into anyone who has ever been a Legionnaire, past, present or future.

To the occasional off-worlder, and younger Naltorians not yet in on the secret, it seems as if Naltor is defended by random Legionnaires who 'just happen to be visiting Naltor at the time,' and by a plethora of unusual heroes that they have never heard of before (who will become Legionnaires, sometime over the next three centuries...).

this is a new take on the Hero dial that i like! its time travel without real time travel! lol

Hykraius -

Hydrus - Helios - unlike most other Hykraians she does not posses both telepathy and telekinesis. she has the standard telepathy to allow her to communicate. But instead of telekinesis, she can manipulate water or more accurately she can manipulate liquid methane. the uses range from using it as a shield to creating more difficult forms. Like all of her race she can not breath outside the methane atmosphere. She can not generate the liquid methane only manipulate it.


Flare- Dalis- a mutant on Hykraius, he has neither telepathy or telekinesis. but he does posses a form of pyrokenisis; he has the ability to oxidize methane and cause heat to surround his body. when his body is heating up the air around him he can cause those around him to suffocate with heat stroke, he can also propel himself at great speeds, using the combustion of the methane.

the two of them are a crime fighting team on Hykraius. They are brother and sister. Helios helps to keep Dalis in check. just like his name he has a temper, which is also unusual as most Hykrian's are even tempered. she helps him to navigate "normal" Hykrian society. the two of them have a very special bond and even though Dalis doesn't communicate with telepathy, they share a bond that seems almost like telepathy to the casual observer.

Ooh, I like the subtle bait 'n switch of having the aquakinetic being named 'Helios' (suggestive of someone with light or fire powers). More characters should totally mess with people by having names that give away absolutely nothing. (And more characters who just absolutely blow away expectations, for that matter. Some five foot nothing >100 lb. waif with super-strength, invulnerability and a sunny disposition, teamed up with a 6'6" bodybuilder who is a telepath/precognitive with a severe aversion to physical confrontation, would be a riot. "Shoot the bodyguard!" "No, the girl, you idiot! She's the bodyguard!"

An aquakinetic who has to carry the materials to use their powers around with them, is a fun concept. On 'Great Mother Ocean,' she'll always be surrounded by liquid (whether it be liquid water or liquid methane or whatever), but to travel off-world, she'll have to keep fluid handy, either around herself, like a big watery 'exoskeleton,' or relying on locally sourced materials (from water pipes underground, etc.) or perhaps even riding around in a 'battlesuit' or 'vehicle' made of aquakinetically manipulated ice!

On the last page of Superboy's Legion, there's a shot of the entire Legion flying towards the viewer, and, way in the back, there's what looks like a blue whale. In my head, that blue whale, instead of being a Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in-joke or a easter egg, is an aquakinetic!

I'm a little fuzzy on Hyrkraians, I've got to admit. I've read that all Hyrkraians are telepathic and telekinetic, that all are telepathic and that Tellus being telekinetic is a rare fluke, and that Tellus is only telepathic as a result of Gil'Dishpan experimentation and that Hyrkraians normally communicate through their colored back nodules (which seemed to be straight from Steve Lightle's original description, although that doesn't necessarily mean that they haven't changed between intent and what is 'now canon').

I pretended they weren't all telepathic telekinetics, for my own write up, but who knows what's 'official' these days... Tellus himself has gone from being able to telekinetically lift a couple hundred pounds to being able to push around a metal tower that must have weighed many thousands of tons, so his power levels have gone from Marvel Girl to Phoenix, it seems.

Your Hykraians are awesome, Omni! Great use of their natural environment

Set thank you for the ideas. that would be a great use of her powers when off world. but i think she would never leave. but i love the ice vehicle application! her and Polar Boy would make a great team!!!

i like the exoskeleton idea too!

i had the same problem. i looked around on here and on different sites for info on the Hykraian's and there wasn't much. i think that would could be explored more!

one source said they all were telepathic and telekinetic and then one said they weren't both. so i went with them all having both abilities.
you've got two more characters right there!

i love when the names give the wrong expectations! But Helios is actually her real name not here hero name. Hydrus is her hero name. lol.

also i think you've got two more characters there that you could make up! hint hint!


and thank you so much Razsolo!

The Hykraians were initially described as not being telepathic in general, but instead using the pods on their back to communicate....the one time I can think of we've actually seen Hykraius though was around the Universo Project, and Tellus' friend definitely used telepathy then, though I'm pretty sure it was only to talk to Tellus. So maybe by default they can only communicate with each other? Or maybe they can only 'talk' telepathically, whereas Tellus specifically can probe minds, control minds, alter perceptions etc....

I think I remember reading that the color changing pods idea was discarded because it was too awkward to depict in a static medium?

Original Tellus plans:

thank you for that Eryk!

More info here

next time i need info i'm coming to you!

From Vyrga;

K'tt'rk Frim of Vyrga uses no 'code-name,' and has never been off of Vyrga, using his powers to help his homeworld, and contribute towards the public good. Born 'unstuck' in local space, he finally internalized and mastered his ability to alter his own size, relative to his surroundings, and can become as small as an earth flea, or enlarge to become almost 20 meters in height. While he would make an unlikely Legionnaire, as Shrinking Violet and Colossal Boy can both greatly exceed his size-shifting limits, he has never even entertained the thought, as he strongly believes that his powers are meant to only be used in service to his fellow Vyrgans.

Gates' thoughts; "A noble soul, if not with the strongest mind for philosophy. He sees his gift as something that belongs to all of Vyrga, and uses his powers in service to our people."

Also from Vyrga;

Tklrti Chktla, aka Swarmcaller, developed as a larvae the ability to conjure a tiny flying insectoid vaguely similar to herself, and to control its actions and perceive through its senses, even at great distances. As she matured, this unusual gift grew, and now she can create swarms of many hundreds of these tiny homonculi, constructs of matter pulled together from the surrounding environment, and animated by her own will, dispersing back into raw elements when she is done with them. She has been experimenting also with manifesting larger insectoid constructs...

Gates' thoughts; "So cliched. We're not bugs! Imagine if you would, a 'superhero' of your own primate-derived mammalian humanoid species who created swarms of tiny monkeys to attack her foes. Ridiculous!"

From Lythyl;

The uncanny interspatial acrobat and martial artist, Lythality, has offered up no other name, although she has abandoned her previous life as a professional killer for the Star Assassin League.

Through unknown means, Lythality has developed the ability to create dimensional 'pockets' across which she can move interspatially, giving her what is functionally short range teleportation. Unlike true teleportation, she can step into a 'pocket' and remain there, possibly for hours, just out of sight and reach of anyone present in 'realspace,' but aware of her surroundings, and able to 'step back' at any time, surprising her quarry like a trapdoor spider.

Her original career as an assassin behind her, Lythality revealed that the dozen 'victims,' whose bodies had never been found, were actually still alive, trapped in private interspatial pockets, frozen in time and unaware of their apparent 'deaths.'

Only one of her original 'victims' was not recoverable, and she claims that he must have found his own way free of her dimensional pocket, to parts unknown...

i love the concept of this one and the fact that she's a former assassin is awesome!

Also Set, i'm loving the Gates cometary!

Swarmcaller is awesome, and an Earth hero who summons loads of tiny monkeys to do his/her bidding would be pretty sweet too now that you brought it up an' all, Gates ^_^

Heh. Monkey Man to the rescue!

Still, it would be cooler if the monkeys were also ninja.

Or perhaps pirates. I'm flexible.

The Infinite Boy: Kando Vyr was one of Naltor's most gifted minds. Before his 13th birthday, his prodigious intellect earned him an internship off-world at the Time Institute.

After an impressive year of study there, Kando took on a project of his own; he decided to use the Time Institute's resources to analyse Naltorian precognition. Kando was certain that the Institute would hold the key to isolating exactly how his people's native ability to see the future worked, and that from there he would be able to find a way to enhance those abilities within himself and others.

Then his research brought him across the tragic story of Jaxon Rugarth's transformation into the Infinite Man.

At first, Kando's only thought was in applying Rond Vidar's theories on circular time to his own work on precognition. As he came to learn more about the Infinite Man though, it occurred to him that maybe Jaxon Rugarth only lost his mind because he was woefully unprepared for the heightened perceptions of time to which he was exposed during his transformation into the Infinite Man. Maybe someone who was already gifted with a high intellect, a thorough understanding of temporal physics and an innate ability to sense the future might fare better?

The idea became too much to resist. Kando worked in secret to duplicate Rond Vidar's hyperdrive for months. It was a few weeks after his 14th birthday when he finally completed it, and full of youthful exuberance he wasted no time in testing it upon himself.

He felt himself flung forward through time with immense power, physically and mentally changing to adapt to the experience. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, his journey was over. It almost felt to Kando as though he had been forcibly ripped from his journey and thrown backwards to his starting point. The machine exploded and where once had been been Kando Vyr now stood the cosmically powered form of the Infinite Boy.

Visually, he resembles a younger, teenager-sized version of the Infinite Man. He has kept his own personality for the most part, though he tends to come across as a lot more of a space cadet these days to those around him. His perceptions are constantly sliding through the endless cycle of time and he has to really focus to mentally stay in the here and now. He can specifically focus on any other point in time at will, and can even summon native beings or objects from that time but he has found out the hard way that summoning those things doesn't mean he can control them. While he no longer possesses the precognitive abilities he once had as a normal Naltorian boy, he does now have a weird awareness of how events in the here and now will affect any other point of time he chooses to focus on and vice versa. The further along the cycle he looks, the more vague this sense becomes as his awareness is split further and further between the two temporal loci.

The Infinite Boy (as he has come to be known) did very briefly consider applying to join the Legion, but dismissed the idea. He isn't yet adept enough to employ his abilities effectively in the kind of combat situations the Legion find themselves in, though he knows one day he will be. More to the point, the one thing he has never been able to see is what force exactly was responsible for ending his journey through time prematurely and this bothers him immensely.

The Infinite Boy has embarked on a personal mission travelling the universe to find answers. Along the way, he uses his abilities to help those in need when he can while he waits for the day when he will become better versed in using his new abilities to more actively seek the truth.

The Infinite Boy is awesome! I love how you tied in not only another 'Legion World,' but also some Legion history to create this character!

It's also cool how you created a Naltorian hero whose powers aren't based on his original precognitive abilities. It wasn't better than average or oddly-functioning precognition that led to his transformation, but his keen intellect and curiousity. Very 'outside the box' and creative!

Thanks!

I was thinking about Gates' commentary on Swarmcaller, and how it's easy to build a character around the one thing their race/species/etc are well-known for, so I figured it might be cool to try for an origin where it makes sense for him to be Naltorian, but his actual powers have very little to do with that side of himself.

I actually debated on whether I was gonna post him...by about halfway through I started thinking how he would be an awesome character to use in my own series and was wondering if I should keep him aside for now, lol

Go for it! If I am inspired to write again, I might pillage an idea or two from this thread as well!

raz please do use him! he sounds wicked Awesome!

Set i can't wait to read something with any number of these characters!

Andromeda, a Tamaran whose natural abilities have been boosted by the Okaaran Warlords. As well as flight her solar. radiation absorbing abilities also power her metabolism giving her strength, speed and durability, and also boosting her mental processing skills so her natural tactile low level telepathic linguistic absorbing ability is strong enough that she cqn understand any language in her presence. She's been trained by the Okaarans so knows how to take care of herself.

Cool to see another Tamaranean, and with ties to the Warlords of Okaara, too! I like how her powers have nothing to do with blasting, and how she's internalized the solar-absorbing powers to function more as a 'mini-Kryptonian' with more Batman-like fighting skill.

From Talok VIII;

The mysterious Emissary has the uncanny ability to alter his coloration from the various shades of blue common to the desert tribes, to the greens of the hill folk, the violet of the sea-going island-dwellers or the glossy black of the polar tribesmen, in reaction to the company he keeps. His features as well change, subtly, from the harsh angular planes of the desert-dwellers faces, to the rounder 'softer' features of the islanders. He is considered an impartial advocate by the various tribes he travels between, overseeing arbitrations of disputes, and helping to settle disputes before they turn into clan wars. Because his true heritage and family name is unknown, the clans accept his neutrality, and he has not betrayed that trust, speaking the different dialects and languages of each tribe as if born among them, a reflection of his power to adapt to any culture he encounters, learning their customs and traditions, taboos and mores, as instinctively as if he had lived among these people all of his life.

Detractors whisper that he is not nameless and clanless as a result of his powers, but is secretly an alien, perhaps a shapeshifting Durlan, or a telepathic spy, manipulating Talokkian tribes for his own benefit, or according to some scheme to render Talokk VIII weak or submissive to an alien agenda. He has survived more than one assassination attempt, as a result of 'unhappy customers' who did not appreciate a truce or agreement he had brokered with their tribal leaders, proving capable of anticipating, and countering, combat techniques as readily as cultural nuances and negotiating gambits.

From Imsk and New Bengal Colony;

Five years ago, a disastrous accident at a research facility on New Bengal Colony caused the disappearance of over a thousand researchers. Scattered through space, and, it was later discovered, as lost people reappeared, even through time, the survivors were left with a gift for teleportation, although most of them were limited to a range of a few meters, at most.

One of the most affected, a young intern named Fayora Ben Stiner, has the ability to teleport over a thousand kilometers, but is limited in that she retains a 'lock' on her starting point, and the farther she teleports, the sooner she involuntarily 'snaps back' to her starting location, with even a short range teleport lasting a few minutes, before she is whisked back to where she started.

Since the 'bungee effect,' as she calls it, only affects her person, she is free to drop off small items or even a larger object up to the size of another person! She initially made a living as a courier, zipping between the domed facilities of New Bengal Colony, although, on a world with dozens of teleporters, few with her range, but also few with her unique limitations, she found it tough to establish a niche for herself.

So she packed up and moved to Earth.

Today, SAGES (pronounced say-jess), aka Snatch & Grab Emergency Services, consists of Fayora and four Imskian brothers, who are adventurous explorers (specialized in caving expeditions), and trained in emergency medical and disaster response and rescue techniques. The brothers shrink down to a few inches in height, and Fayora teleports them into a dangerous situation, where they use tiny thruster packs to navigate through wreckage, in search of survivors (while she snaps back to her starting point, and awaits their call for evacuation). When they find one, they clear a space large enough for Fayora, and activate a locater beacon, so that she can teleport into the area and teleport the survivor to safety. All wear protective environmental suits, and after a couple of years of exposure, now wear recording equipment as well, as they are the focus of their own 'reality holovision series,' which tracks them through their various adventures (and the various downtime shenanigans the brothers get up to).

Titan-

Gorla- not born with the normal telepathic abilities of the average Titan, he grew up very isolated from the rest of his kind. Even though his family was very caring and he loves them more than anything. But as he grew he learned that he had a talent for making psychic suggestions to people through physical touch. just a simple tap and he can send either simple or complicated commands to peoples minds.

this made him feel more isolated because he was never sure if anyone he touched was just following his own unconscious commands/desires or if they were actually caring for him.

he was eventually recruited by earthgrov to work in espionage. his covert actions have helped stop waring planets and sooth peace talks.

Having a mind-controller who is actually uncomfortable with the connotations of that is different....I can't think of anyone off the top of my head who has suggestive abilities who doesn't just embrace them and run with it, so nice one Omni!

Another one from Titan:

At the Legion of Superheroes' very first public appearance, somebody asked Imra Ardeen why she chose the name Saturn Girl when Saturn is only the planet her homeworld orbits...the question was raised, wouldn't it make more sense to call herself Titan Girl? Imra explained that she couldn't take the name Titan Girl; that name already belonged to Dacey Gorann, one of Titan's most beloved heroines.

Titan Girl possesses the ability to absorb ambient psions in her immediate vicinity and use them to fuel her power to increase her size, making her kind of a Titanian Colossal Girl. A side-effect of this ability is that she actively dampens psionic powers in a radius around her as she increases in size. The larger she grows, the wider her dampening net extends and the more power it leeches. Her own telepathy isn't immune to this effect, so she can't use her natural Titanian abilities when she is at giant size...her own natural telepathy isn't that well-developed anyway and as most people around her generally can't use their powers either, she doesn't consider this much of a setback.

Titan Girl did very briefly join a precursor to the Legion of Superheroes known as the Justice Legion, but she quickly resigned when she realised that her power was far more limited in scope once she left a planet full of telepaths...she was also concerned that her psion-leeching ability might actually be damaging to people who don't generate an excess of psionic energy to begin with, as telepaths do. At any rate, the Justice Legion fell apart soon after its inception under mysterious circumstances.

Titan Girl now exists in the fairly unique position of being very well-regarded as a hero with a lot of experience on Titan, but practically unknown anywhere else in the UP.

I kind of love the idea of a Titanian who taps into all the telepathic energy running around on Titan and uses it to do something else! A telekinetic, powered by telepaths in the area, could be Jean Grey levels of awesome, on Titan, and, on earth, barely able to move a paperclip (and, depending on how her power works, attempting to do so might cause non-telepathic humans around her to suffer headaches or nosebleeds or memory lapses or fainting spells, as she attempts to draw upon psychic energies that they don't have to spare...).

Lume- a planet that is arid blue dessert. a world that is always at dusk. the dominate life form on the planet are sprightly balls of light that fly around. each of these sprites can generate heat and grow to the standard size of a human. their larger form is translucent.

Sorry for the geography lesson. but i figured some nice background to help understand the characters to follow.

The Blue Night-On this planet there is a silent hero to the Lumians. this hero is made from the very blue dessert they call home. he shift his form in the sand and creates sand storms when needed. but what they don't know is that its actually their own power of light projection is what drives the blue dessert. the blue dessert has like a hive mind, that shift from grain of sand to grain of sand and they see the lumians as almost god like figures shining down on them and giving them light.


BrightStar- A light manipulator. whose able to use the light from other lumians to create blinding light shows that can blind even the brightest lumian. also allows for small energy burst in laser form. his light shines the brightest around other lumians but his own light isn't as bright when he's alone. still capable of flight. When he draws the light from the other lumians he makes them dimmer. in some cases it has almost drained a few of his people of their life light.

learned very early that his light wasn't as bright at others but one day, when the Krudian Empire invaded. he was one of the Lumians to fight back. but he noticed during battle that as he became more aggressive and intense his light got brighter. but the light of his fellow Lumians weren't as bright. As he fought he began to show small burst from his hands and his speed came with a little burst as well.
when this happened he noticed some of his fellow freedom fighters fall to the ground. almost lifeless. One of them was his best friend, Starshine.

as he tried to save her she was captured by the Krudian soldiers. They left before he could save her. he began to train in the use of his powers to not kill those around him and use their light safely. he vowed he will find away to save her.

From Mars;

Lohsy Treannan, aka 'Genius Girl' developed her unique talent (or, some would say, condition) after barely surviving an accident on Mars that left her without breathable atmosphere for over a day. Found in a comatose state, when she finally awoke, she seemed to be suffering from visual and auditory hallucinations, at least, until it was proven that these 'hallucinations' were providing her with accurate information that she couldn't possibly have otherwise known.

From these 'Intelligences,' as she called them, she could learn many things about her local environment, or, over time, about people in an area, and it was never entirely clear if she was in communication with actual invisible entities, or if she had some ability to sense things over great distances, and her 'communications' were simply her brains way of parceling out information in discrete chunks, to save her from overload. In any event, once it was determined that her constantly 'talking to herself' and addressing invisible entities wasn't a sign of chemical imbalance or mental trauma, she was released from observation and allowed to resume a more or less normal life, turning her new talents to investigative work, as the many 'voices in her head' gave her a wide array of perspectives on any given case, in addition to valuable information.

She seemed to have access to both 'local Intelligences,' which had more specific information on wherever she found herself, and her 'regulars,' who attended her wherever she went, and some theorized that she was in actual communion with some sort of psychic or spiritual remnants of the long-dead Martian race.

The truth may never be known, but the effectiveness of her unique talent is irrefutable!

Steeple -

A planet that is hidden for a decade at a time by a black hole.

Like any world cut off from the rest of the U.P. it has its share of problems. the S.P's are able to deal with most things. But there is an order of Monks there trained in the use of harmonic healing. they ride the winds on giant beast. Three of the monks have taken to becoming local protectors forming a squad of wind riders. they try for peaceful resolution but are trained fighters and each with powerful variation of the Harmonic sounds they create.

Friar Hiam - capable of harmonic sonar. The eldest of the monks, he's their leader in the field. But he's also the quietest of them all. his voice is soft but when he does speak everyone can hear him.

Friar Evly - his particular sound capabilities allow him to sooth almost anyone into submission and almost putting them into a trance like state.
an eager young monk, who has recently entered into the brother hood and as much as he believes in the peaceful ways of the monks, these adventures as protectors intrigues him.

Friar Semel - the only monk whose harmonic abilities is destructive. he has the ability to produce a sonic cry that can shatter almost anything. he uses it more localized to take out his opponent weapons. he can also create a wall of sound as a shield. Very much the middle man between his two brothers. he tends to be the strategist of the group.

That's a super-evocative idea you've got there!

Very creative and cool!

I like how the youngest and most 'impetuous' of the friars also happens to have a peaceful power, and isn't the one with the destructive resonance harmonics, and how the 'leader' and eldest has a purely sensory / information-gathering power. That's a nice mixup.

From Xanthu;

Thom Kallor was never the only 'champion of Xanthu,' and nor was Atmos, for that matter.

For decades, four champions have been chosen by the pre-eminent scientific body of the planet, and empowered with mastery over one of the four fundamental forces of the univese. Thom Kallor, imbued with gravity manipulating powers, as Star Boy (his origin falsified, as the nature of the process is classified), is the most widely known of these, and his own powers have been altered over the years, as he has served off-world (the bulk of the powers artificially bestowed upon him transferred instead to local protector, Atmos).

Easily the most popular, Jasmin Cullen, aka Brightflame, has command of the 'strong' nuclear force, which binds atoms together. Manifesting as a greenish 'fire' that radiates a warm golden light, she can cause matter to fall apart into its component atoms, utterly disintegrating it on the molecular level. Alternately, she can generate a purple 'fire' that dims light and sucks in heat from its surroundings, and instead reinforce the atomic bonds of the item she targets, making items (or people) temporarily effectively invulnerable. Using these powers, she is able to become invulnerable to harm, and to destroy anything she turns her green flame upon. Creative applications of her power allow her to 'disintegrate' herself, while remaining in conscious control of her power, allowing her to become a form of glowing green mist, and move incorporeally through most obstacles, or to use her reinforcing violet fire to repair damaged objects, or even to selectively strengthen someone's molecular bonds so that they can not move, paralyzed by the same forces that are protecting them from harm.

Like the other members of the fundemental-force-empowered champions, she uses her powers not merely as a super-powered combatant, but also in the course of civic works, destroying pollutants or reinforcing disaster-damaged buildings, as the situation warrants.

Thanks Set!

I wanted to stay away from the idea of the youngest having a destructive power.

and i feel like a leader needs knowledge, so why not have him be the intel.

also i love your Genius Girl. but i have a question does he ability work outside of Mars or only on Mars??

I didn't want to nail down exactly how her ability works, so I left it a bit fuzzy on purpose. She does have some 'regulars' who seem to be attached to her, in addition to the 'locals' she communes with at any given location, so even off of Mars, she might be able to make use of these 'regulars.' (Unless they really *are* the discorporate 'telepathic echoes' of the long dead Martian race, in which case maybe they can't follow her off of Mars! Or maybe they can, being spiritually linked to her and, more or less, 'possessing' her? Eh, six of one, half-dozen of the other.)

Whatever keeps the mystery alive.

I haven't read much with Steeple in it, but the idea of it fascinates me, cool work with the monks.

And I love the reimagining of Jasmin! Awesome!! Also, the idea that Star Boy's origin is a cover is super interesting, makes me wonder if any of the other Legionnaires or even Dreamy would know. Thom has been pretty dedicated to his world in the past, I could see him keeping it a secret if he is instructed to...

I wanted to introduce a version of her for the 'classic' continuity, and yet not go to the 'quantum' well of squiffily-defined powers. The strong nuclear force makes for a very powerful ability (which suits her), and yet is easier to nail down, I think.

Thanks! I wanted to play with the idea that he used to have a ton of powers (Superboy-like in nature) and has been cut down to just gravity manipulation (while, not-so-coincidentally, a stay at home hero named Atmos has taken his place as planetary champion, and now has the same Superboy-like powers). Having the powers be some sort of legacy handed down (and sometimes taken back and re-gifted) by the Xanthuan government / science authority, keeps his past power changes in-continuity, while coming up with an explanation for them more detailed than 'they went away' and 'oh, and here's Atmos, a totally unrelated guy with pretty much the same powers...'

i love this re imagining of her! and she sounds powerful enough to join the legion!


i like the explanation of Thom's power changes as well.

Here's another one from Steeple...idk why but i'm really just intrigued by this planet. I think its because of the reboot planets its the one we got to see the most of but yet didn't learn that much about...

Black Hole -Griem - able to increase the gravity of people and things much like Star Boy, but he steals the gravity from the Black hole that cuts off Steeple from the rest of the U.P. for 10 years at a time.
He is connected to the black hole, because he was born during the onset of one. He mass affecting powers emerged shortly after his birth. As he grew he learned to control them. On his tenth birthday, the Black hole was lifting. He was using his mass powers to help keep him attached to one of the gliding beast without having to use the reins.
suddenly his mass powers faded and as he took a sharp turn, he feel from the beast's back. as he plummeted to his death, he was saved by The monks. specifically a younger Friar Hiam.
He realized that his powers came from the black hole's presence.

The boy was so grateful to the Friar Hiam that he sought out to be a monk just like Friar Hiam. But as he grew and came closer to being a monk he realized that the life of a monk was not for him. this event also coincide with the Black hole reemerging. As the black hole closed in many people were frantic to get off planet before it cut off transportation from Steeple. there were various ships that were about to take off, after the alarms went off that no more ships were allowed to leave; and he used his mass increasing powers to keep them from being destroyed by the Black hole. he felt the excitement of saving people and looked into the hero life. Not long after this he ran into Friar Haim again, But this time with his fellow wind riders squad. The three Friar's were in pursuit of a local villain who was in mid-transport to Talkton-Glactous (sP?)when the black hole reemerged and was marooned on Stepple. He broke free of his restraints and killed several Science Police officers. Griem followed the wind riders through the Ariel catacombs. As the Friar's closed in on the Villain he took each of them out and captured them. the villain had acquired a cave and some gear to maneuver around the skies.

Black hole followed the villain to his lair, where he ambushed him. using his mass powers to pin him to a wall. while he freed the Friar's.


As he grows older he learned that he can actually create mini black holes and uses it as a portal to the other side of the black hole. he has yet to actually try going through himself or sending a living person. but he does send objects.

As his power is tied to the black holes reemergence into Steeple's orbit, he can only use his powers during it and on Steeple. He ventured out once during a safe time and tired to use his powers. but nothing happened. once he returned back to Steeple, he still had no powers but he could sense mass differences.

Ha, I wasn't sure if Steeple was a 'real' Legion World, or something you'd made up! Guess I really need to catch up on my Reboot stuff!

It sounds really fascinating, with the black hole isolation and the flying steeds. Both alien and sci-fi funktastic!

lol yeah they only had like two appearances. and it really is. i think there was a lot of potential there.

that is one of the things in any of the versions of the legion. i wished we got to see more of other planets besides Earth.

From Starhaven;

Over the ten centuries humanity has spread across the galaxy, dozens of ethnic groups have sought out places where they could celebrate their unique heritage, and the Anasazi of Starhaven were certainly not the only group of First Nations peoples who ended up far from the planet of their birth.

Starhaven, the first of its kind, often served as a gathering point for colonists from First Nations-settled worlds, becoming a cosmopolitan mecca of sorts, for people who shared a Native American heritage.

And so it comes to pass that two of the most celebrated 'native' heroes of Starhaven are not Anasazi by birth. The hero duo of Hue & Cry consist of Pachu'A, an albino Hopi man with light and color manipulating abilities, and Iztali, a Meztizo woman with the ability to increase, diminish or change the frequencies of sound in her presence.

While Iztali has the wings shared by many native Starhavenites, and is able to enhance her flight speed through the use of harmonic vibrations to create a slipstream of air that accelerates her flight, Pachu'A does not have that modification, and prefers to travel by sky-cycle, using his own unique ability to drain away the color of his appearance, rendering him all but invisible, while leaving him with a colorful palette of absorbed light to use for their heroic exploits.

[I always loved how Marvel's Cloak & Dagger took a catchphrase term and used it as the name of a pair of superheroes, and wanted to come up with a similar duo based on a phrase like Smoke & Mirrors or Night & Day or Shock & Awe or Sturm & Drang or Rock & Roll. Hue & Cry was a bit more esoteric, but fit for a team that had powers like those of Color Kid and Tyroc.]

I am a big fan of that naming convention for pairs when it works well with the characters; Hue and Cry sound really cool, they would have a great visual together too!

Also, I became aware of what a terrible pun I just wrote after the fact lol

As ideas go, Hue & Cry kind of sprang out of nowhere. I'd been thinking of duos based off of catchphrases (a la Cloak & Dagger) and this thread and that I hadn't come up with any Starhavenite heroes and BAM, chocolate in my peanut butter...

I thought it was a bit odd that I'd come up with a Hyrkraian hero before one from Starhaven!

Tharr-

Delin Hianna - one of the few people who instead of developing Cryokinesis to combat the heat of Tharr, she developed the ability to manipulate heat and flame as well as cast a sun flare. she uses her manipulation powers to increase the strength and intensity of her sun flare. But its range isn't very far. she is able to cast it up to 3 meters. When she manipulates its heat intensity it can grow a bit bigger as well. she also has a scorch touch, which she is able to do because she can manipulate her body temperature.

however, she can not leave the planet. this is one of the downsides to her abilities. since she is a being of heat manipulation, she relies on the heat keep her systems going. If she left Tharr, she would freeze to death as their would be no heat for her to absorb and redirect. Even in a transuit, which can replicate whatever environmental needs she could have can not replicate the amount of heat she needs to survive.

As a youth she was recruited into a government run training program. the government sought to put her abilities to use for the betterment of their world. As their sole hero on planet, she has come to be a shining example for all those who are different and have similar abilities as hers.

Even though Polar Boy, is renowned and their most famous hero, the government still supports and promotes Delin as their premier super hero, she is Siharra.

So if she left Tharr, she'd look like the reversed version of Mr Freeze.

Delin is a cool name. Definitely part of the fun of coming up with Legion-ish characters is coming up with whacked out names for them, in the style of 'Reep Daggle' and 'Salu Digby.'

I like how her powers come with a drawback, restricting her to Tharr (or requiring her to wear a 'pyro-suit,' as Shining Son noted, the reverse of Mr. Freeze's 'cryo-suit').

agreed set! it really is fun doing that! i'm not as familiar with how names work on every world so its def hard but fun.

thanks. yeah i didn't think of the her as the reverse Mr. Freeze, but that would make for a cool plot point for her.

When you think about it, she's probably one of the few on Tharr who are comfortable there (the rest of the population tend to bundle up in fur-trimmed thinsulate, don't they?), so the restriction is less onerous than to others Tharrans.

H'lven is an arboreal world located in sector 1014, home of a race of sentient rodent-like creatures nicknamed Monks for their resemblance to chipmunks.hile the Monks are the dominant species on the planet, there are other intelligent races on H'lven that resemble anthropomorphic versions of moles, foxes, bears, and eagles. (source Wikipedia).

A strike force on this planet that fights against greedy corporations on a global and interstellar level that are slowly ruining their planet. the team is made up of one member from all five species of this planets population.

Chomper - a mutated chipmunk, whose grown 5 feet in height from the standard Monk, which is 2 feet tall. he gained super strength and durability, like Matter Eater Lad, he can chomp threw anything. due to his increase in size, he isn't as nimble as other Monks, to be able to fly from tree to tree; he uses hover discs to get around.
he also has a shorter tail then most Monks.

He was Once your average Monk named V'li and he worked for McCaulney Industries. They had recently come to H'lven to mine for Verilium; a new element that had been discovered. it was used in the process to create a power batteries for a new starship drive McCaulney industries were developing. He was a minor in the Southern Hemisphere of H'lven. One day there was a cave in and he was stuck underground for almost three days. during this time the radiation from the Verilium seeped into his mining suit which only could filter out the radiation for 30 hours at a time. the radiation changed him. most would have died but he some how absorbed the radiation and it enhanced his racial traits. He was freed by one of his future teammates. He spent months recuperating in a hospital and after some rehab he found his strength and durability increased. He began fighting against McCaulney's intrusion. As McCaulney's agents became more forceful, their was a war that broke out over the Verilium and that is when Cho'per formed his strike force. As the battle with McCaulney wages they do their best to liberate the southern hemisphere from his influence. The rest of the planet is under the assumption that isn't a war. but Cho'per knows that it is.

There is nothing about this that is not amazing. ^_^

Thanks Raz! I've been doing a bit of research trying to find other planets that could possibly still exist in the Legion's time period that we never see much of!

This list is fun to mine for ideas.

Cool that H'lven could make a reappearance

Let's try...

Enwa is a planet of yellow-skinned humanoids with large eyes designed to help them function during the long Enwan night.

The mysterious heroine known as Catseye had a sister who, along with her Terran lover, were killed by White Triangle terrorists (this is canon, check Legionnaires 27 for details!). Catseye used her special ability to reflect light with her eyes and tracked down the four Daxamites who ravaged Earth and destroyed Trom, punishing them severely when the Legion stranded them on a red sun planet (Legionnaires Annual 2). It was said that when the SPs finally picked them up, all 4 had become gibbering messes of themselves. They do not sleep well even until now.

In addition to being able to cast light beams from her eyes, Catseye has impressive acrobatic and physical combat skills. Her light-reflecting abilities range from gentle ambient light to full-on lasers capable of tearing through metal. Catseye has made it her mission to track down all members of the White Triangle who were involved in terrorist acts - especially the ones who murdered Trom.

Thanks Set. this will come in handy.

Love it Ib and your bringing the PZH legion as always!

i like her ability and that its through her eyes and not her hands!

More from H'lven-

Cho'per's teammates:

Fen'ec (fox)- an expert tracker due to his heightened sense of smell,eye sight, hearing( which he has extra large ears, making his face seem smaller) and a sixth sense of sorts.He can't explain how it works, it was just something he was born with. but in combination with his other sense he can track almost anyone on the planet.
He also small and agile; which allows him to move quickly. his tale is long fluffy and his fur covers his whole body and allows him to with stand high temperatures.

He's the youngest of the Cho'per's strike force. even though he's the youngest, he was one of the first to join. he was actually the one who saved Cho'per from the cave in. He stayed with Cho'per through his rehabilitation and was like a side kick for him. He formed a strong bond with Cho'per.

Fen'ec has chosen not to take a hero name

W'ip(moles)- Like other moles he is able to burrow through almost any surface, he has sharp claws which are retractable, but he can't see for anything. his eye sight is so bad that he actually has goggles that magnify his sight, as well as. but in pitch black he can see perfectly.

he's the technician of the group and uses his skills to build various devices for the team. he's greatest contribution has been a transport vehicle; which is strong as a tank but quick and agile. the vehicle is in the shape of giant ball with a wheel around it. the metal is triple enforced Titanium allow, they stole from McCaulney's own plants. He outfitted it with laser capabilities, with rapid fire controls.

W'ip's reasons for joining the strike force, come from his families deaths. Him and his family were passing through the G'be forest, when McCaulney's forces were downsizing(leveling and vaporizing everything in their path) it. they were making way for their new plant. The G'be forest was home to St'r city; a large attraction for most in the southern hemisphere.Even though its not that large of a city it was one of the few cities that used its large reservoir to its fullest; it powered everything in the city. W'ip and his family were there sight seeing. unfortunately they didn't get to see many sights before it was downsized. W'ip watched as they were downsized as McMaulney's forces invaded the city as if it wasn't there at all. using his burrowing abilities burrowed deep enough before getting downsized himself.
when he came back up there was nothing left. he wondered the raged St'r city for hours evading McMaulney's forces. He came upon Ch'oper and Fen'ec by accident. they almost attacked him. but when he feel over in tears. taking him in he's been with them since, putting his skills to use.

two more from H'lven

Spr't(Bear)- once a member of the R'ibo bear tribe in the southern hemisphere, Spr't died many eons ago. but his spirit never left this plain because his people charged him with protecting their sacred burial grounds. As McMaulney's forces downsized much of the Southern Hemisphere and built various power plants they built their complexes on top of the very burial grounds that he swore to protect.

his form, shows up as a big black bear shadow and when he passes through anything mechanical he shorts it out completely or he can posses it.
he tried this trick many times over, when the power plants first emerged He can teleport himself places as well and can be invisible when he wants. his ghostly form is just as grizzly as his corporal body was, over 6 feet tall, with black and red hair that is thick and course it grows every which way.

As he tried to communicate with and force people to leave, he learned Interlac and eventually came across Cho'per and his team. he followed them back to their headquarters and continued to follow them on missions. During a mission that went wrong and the team was almost caught in their own explosion of a power plant, Spr't used his ghostly ability to transport himself and the team out of the plant. At first they were scared of him but as he stuck around more they learned of his caring nature and his loyalty to helping them ride the southern hemisphere of McMaulney's influence.


Y'lp (eagle)- the only female member of Cho'per's team, she's also the latest edition to the team. she is very agile and has the ability to fly like most of the other eagles of her species. but she has an extra ability, her wings are capable of shooting her feathers at high velocities; turning them into sharp blades. her talons are also sharp as well but average in strength.

Y'lp joined Cho'per's forces after she tried to picket McMaulney's forces and fight for her people. when she was arrested she broke herself out using her wings to help her escape. now a fugitive from the McMaulney's forces and the local authorities.

Jaluur of Tsauron, aka Sightseer, knows that he has an uphill struggle to overcome racial prejudice as a hero, thanks to the most (in)famous member of his race being the Dark Circle conspirator and terrorist Ontiir, who led many on his homeworld to support subverting and overthrowing the United Planets, but he refuses to hide his face or remain on the homeworld, travelling across U.P. space to use his psychic abilities on behalf of those in need, as sort of one-man goodwill ambassador.

Rarely, on Tsauron, a child is 'born from a dark egg,' one that traditionally has failed to thrive and contains no living child, and such children are often sickly creatures, as if their early brush with death has left them forever a half-step away from their last breath, but also with strange spiritual and psychic insights.

Jaluur was such a child, increasingly rare in these days of advanced medicine, and has the ability to seperate his soul from his body for brief times, allowing him to astrally project his spirit up to 186,000 miles from his body, in the blink of an eye, and to remain viewing an area remotely for up to six minutes. During this time, his body lies in a death-like state, motionless and unbreathing, but his spirit can not just remotely observe distant locations, but also become visible to communicate telepathically with those present, or even possess other living beings, making them into his unwitting puppets.

In addition to these clairvoyant talents, he has a limited and uncontrolled gift for sensing powerful psychic events or emotional impressions, even over gulfs of space or time, much like psychometry or precognition, but far less reliable than a Naltorian's insights, and generally only serving to give him a notion of where his talents would be most needed, when he finishes a mission and heads for the local spaceport to make his departure.

His thick scaly hide, intimidating natural weaponry and lean, yet muscular body gives the impression that he is a physical powerhouse (although he is of slighter build than the average Tsauron, due to the circumstances of his birth), and he is indeed marginally stronger (and notably more durable) than a human, but he is no match for even the weakest of superhuman combatants, instead relying on his ability to seize control of others in the blink of an eye, his own body falling over insensate as he usurps control of the most dangerous adversary present, and uses their talents against any others that endanger himself or those he has arrived to protect.

His most notable mundane skill, other than a knack for 'reading' people and getting a sense of their nature's, is a facility for languages. Even without a translation matrix, Jaluur has mastered seventeen individual languages, apart from Interlac (including the three most common Tsauron dialects), and enjoys speaking to aliens he encounters in their native tongues, using a mastery of idiom and diction that no translation program can match.

Not all of the mutants of Lallor chose the right side of the rebellion against the dictatorial regime.

Nad Ganra, aka Agent X served the government even after the others rebelled and were imprisoned, having been tricked into believing that his fellow mutants had become traitors to the 'benevolent' lawful government, and were anarchists, mad with power, attempting to return Lallor to the chaos of the post-war years.

His government handlers kept him in seclusion, in one of the tall towers of the capitol city, and censored every bit of information that came into his spacious penthouse home, keeping him shut in and isolated from any news that might conflict with the propoganda they were feeding him, by rumors that his former fellow mutants wished to assassinate him, among other methods.

The whole time, they exploited his mutant powers, to emit 'radiation X,' a dull reddish glow that was harmless to organic life or machinery, but caused any object or creature exposed to it to become at first translucent, layer by layer, and then finally invisible, for up to 24 hours after initial exposure, allowing the despotic regime to bring 'Agent X' their secret weaponry, covert agents and secret police, to be rendered invisible, the better to spy upon their own citizens, and strike unseen, to blame their own acts of aggression on partisan rabble-rousers, anarchists and terrorists, to better convince the frightened citizenry that their draconian and cruel security measures were 'necessary, for your protection!'

Of lesser use to the regime was Ganra's ability to produce the pale blue 'anti-X radiation,' that caused invisible things in his area to become visible, even to the extent of being able to create what appeared to be blue-gray banks of thick concealing fog, by making the air itself visible to the human eye.

After the Heroes of Lallor, with the help of the Legion of Super-Heroes, freed their world from the oppressive regime, Agent X was taken into custody, and over the next years of imprisonment, learned the truth of the regime he had supported, and the terrible uses to which those he had made invisible had been put.

Now, regretful of his past deeds, he has been released to serve alongside the Heroes of Lallor, on a probationary basis, carrying an assortment of nonlethal weapons and wearing protective armor that he has rendered invisible with his X-radiation, giving those unaware of the nature of his powers the impression that he is invulnerable and can shoot blasts of stunning electricity from his hands, while saving his talent for making himself and his new allies invisible to surprise their foes.

loving this!
you've built such a great world around the hero

Kahloans - Kahloans are the indigenous people of the planet Kahlo. Many Kahloans are addicted to Belamort, a psychotropic plant.

Kahloans are a humanoid species with green skin, and they are all have slightly elongated necks and limbs.

Detox-as there are many on the planet who are addicted to the psychotropic plant; the Belamort, it causes various reactions. Once such reaction is the villain Detox.
Due to the large amounts of Belamort he was taking, he built up an immunity to its psychotropic effects. But he gained the ability to drain people of their psychotropic effects and cast them into an almost lethargic state of being, potentially even reducing them to a catatonic state. His ability is much like a hunger. he hungers for the Belamort affects. But even when he drains others he doesn't attain the desired affects but his hunger is satiated. His ability only works on those who are "tripping" on Belamort.

He was a low level drug pusher, when he accepted a job from his bosses to be a tester for a new strain of Belamort.after the final trial he began to developed his abilities. The drug company that was developing the drug, was working to make it a more poitent strain to sell on the black market and to sell it intergalacticly for recreational use, as Belamort is legal on Kahlo. Detox, or Gral as he was known then, entered into a coma like state for several days. when he awoke, he was in a medical ward with other patients who were "tripping" on the Belamort. As he began to stir he started to feel hungry but it wasn't a normal kind of hunger. it was a hunger for Belamort. as he looked around he began to drain the patients. at first he was horrified, but as he fed his hunger lapsed and he grew to liking taking peoples effects.

as he learned how to control his ability he began to use it to help him rob drug dealers, and the wealthy of their fortunes. building his own criminal network.

Belamort = beautiful death? Neat.

Detox may not be a hero, as written, but if he learns to manage his own hunger, and refine his abilities, he could be a one-man cure for the addiction (or various other addictions?). His current status as more of a predator-upon-addicts is made a bit more tragic, given the beneficial and healing potential of his abilities...

Thanks! It was inspired by the backstory behind the Heroes of Lallor, five 'mutants' imprisoned by a dictatorial regime on their homeworld. I just added the potential for their being more 'mutants,' and for some of them to have been on the 'wrong side.' (Pro-jackbooted-imperials, anti-rebel-scum.)

His power, to use 'x-radiation' to make other things transparent was meant to evoke those classic '60s powers, like being able to shoot X-rays at people and make them transparent (which, we know today, would just give them freakish amounts of cancer...).

Anti-X-radiation, able to make invisible things (even air!) visible and opaque, was the 'comic-book-logic' reverse of that Silver Age 'Science!'

One thousand years after their royal caste was nearly rendered extinct by ruthless aggressors, the Exorian race has adapted to prevent such a tragedy from ever occuring.

Where the rare royals once travelled in twin-pairs, and could only trigger their fantastic shapeshifting powers by contacting their sibling, this vulnerability was deemed too risky, and, ten centuries later, there are now several dozen royals, scattered across the seven worlds that the Exorians have jointly colonized along with allied UP races, so that no one catastophe can threaten their species. In addition, each royal is a single entity, androgynous and hermaphroditic, able to trigger it's own shapeshifting talents without the presence of a second royal.

Most Exorian royals remain on the worlds that their people have settled, but a few travel the stars as emissaries, part of their peoples plan for continued survival, to integrate themselves as thoroughly into intergalactic society as they can, and the most famous Exorian royal is Reyka, an Exorian shifter famous for hir humanitarian endeavors, and hir unique talent for shapeshifting into various mechanical forms, including, for personal transportation, a small one-person spacecraft!

Like all Exorian royals, Reyka's shifting is limited, in hir case to machinery not much larger than hir trademark scout ship form, but s/he keeps extremely up to date on current mechanical innovations, and can take the form of life-saving medical machines, utilitarian earth-moving or construction devices, various types of transport vehicle, life support modules, and, in defense of those who cannot defend themselves from aggression, combat-grade war-machines and shockingly effective weapons platforms!

i love this!! i love that you've made a transformer but way more interesting!

The Barrions of Barrio III are silicon based lifeforms. They are a race of round crystalline spheres, with eyes and fully functional appendages that have sharp talon like fingers and resemble thick black cables. they can also stretch to up to a 3 feet radius.

The people of Barrio III, have kept to themselves over the last thousand years. after the Green Lantern Corps disbanded and their representative, Chaselon went missing in action. they have recently signed a treaty with the United Planets, joining officially.

Their spherical shapes haven't changed in the 1000 years since last the galaxy saw them. But something has changed. several of them have begun to develop various abilities. The most common of these abilities is extreme durability. Others are Telepathy, and Light manipulation.

As Barrions are generally accepting of all their people, they have used their resources to help train people with these powers to be useful in society as well as potentially be heroes. As they are inspired by Chaselon, good example. He is like their Superman.

Shazlon- one of the extremely durable type. Shazlon is known as Sphereica; because she's able to retract her appendages and be a complete sphere, she uses her durability to roll over her opponents and take them out with ease. She's also been put to work to help clear tree's from forest for development. she hopes to learn how to expand her durability and see how far she can push it. Shazlon is a bit of an adrenalin junky and loves pushing herself to the limit. He next quest is to see how she fares against a volcanic eruption. One of her reasons for pushing herself so hard is because she knows she's not the only one who posses great durability, so she strives to push herself to the peak and do the best she can.
She has hopes of leaving Barrio III someday to see what else she can do with the her extreme durability. She's hoping this treaty with the U.P. will help her do this.

Ah, the Green Lantern races, such a wonderful source of new aliens!

yup and considering we know almost nothing about many of them its gonna be a gold mine!

From the Free Cities of Haven (all that remains of the devastated world of Competalia), the Ladies of Misschief are considered heroes by some, but are generally regarded as capricious thrillseekers by UP authorities.

Coming from a society where *everyone* has superhuman abilities, due to the expressed metagene that all Competalian descended humanoids share, the five members of this clique of 'heroes' have chosen to leave the spacefaring Free Cities of Haven behind, to join a larger universe where not everyone has the same sort of unique and special talents.

It's perhaps something of a misnomer to call any of them 'leader,' as they are all strong-willed and independent-minded, but the one who most often instigates their shenanigans is Vareena Liu (lee-oo), aka Miss Behave, who has the meta-ability to affect the inhibitions of others, causing them to 'act out' in spectacular and outrageous ways, or to be all-but paralyzed with shame and self-doubt, unable to act. Rumor has it she uses her abilities on herself, as well as others, keeping herself in a near constant state of loosened inhibitions, and serving to explain her often erratic and sensationalistic behaviors.

Miss Direction, Pardivak Mille (meel), contrasts her 'leaders' wild attention-seeking nature by being the member about which the least accurate information is available, as she has a gift for deception that borders on the superhuman, having spread a bewildering plethora of lies and half-truths about her past, her nature, her abilities, etc. Her actual meta-ability is to redirect forces in her close proximity, sometimes to the extreme of being able to reflect hostile energies or projectiles to strike other opponents, or to cause moving individuals to fly sideways or upwards, as their personal momentum is redirected up to ninety degrees.

With powers reminiscent of Chemical King, Noma Vu (view), aka Miss Fire can catalyze any energetic reaction, causing batteries and chemical accelerants to burst into fire, or otherwise discharge. She can even, with concentration, cause oxygen in the air to combust, but is far more capable at causing weapons in her view to spontaneously discharge, making them far more of a danger to their weilders than to her or her allies! In contrast with her explosive and volatile powers, Noma herself is laid-back, appearing perpetually bored with the current circumstances, although she has a sneaky sense of humor. While as lovely as the rest of her travelling companions, after accidentally combusting her own hair (an incident to which she responded with mild annoyance, in her typically unflappable way), Noma has shaved her head and wears a spiky ornate head-dress that trails dozens of strands of tiny gemstone beads, in place of 'hair.'

Taraana Shen, as Miss Fortune, has powers over luck, and is perpetually hyper-aware of her surroundings, and powerfully manic in personality, always in motion and, to her teammates consternation, always talking. Her abilities allow her to sense probabilities as a form of 'pressure' building up in certain areas, and to 'push' at these concentrations of probability, causing seemingly improbable calamities to befall those she has 'jinxed.' The more often (and more spectacularly) her foes are afflicted by these misfortunes, the more she feels that probability is 'relaxed' around herself, and the more comfortable she feels, as she becomes increasingly *more* fortunate, the more she brings misfortunes to others. She actively pushes Miss Behave into risky and 'heroic' encounters, as the more conflict arises, the more chances she has to 'jinx' others, and therefore the luckier she herself becomes, giving her strong incentive to keep her teammates meddling in 'super-adventures' and not just partying and enjoying their celebrity status.

Miss Take, Jalakr Chanu, has the superhuman ability to 'take' anything she can see, up to about as large an item as she could physically carry in her arms, teleporting it from anywhere within her visual range to her grasp. She typically uses this power to snatch away weapons or stolen valuables, or even, in one dramatic case, to seize a kidnapped child hostage away from her kidnapper, but can also reverse the effect, and teleport any suitably sized item from her own grasp to anywhere within her visual range, allowing her to send an explosive high into the sky, or to 're-gift' a grenade to a distant opponent, or even to deliver medical or survival equipment to someone out of physical reach. The most capricious of the five Ladies of Misschief, she is the one most likely to have turned to crime, if left to her own devices (having a power eminently suited to a life of theft, after all, as well as a more chequered past...), and, even as a 'hero of convenience,' is likely to spice up her hero activities by snatching away a wrong-doers clothing, instead of merely disarming them.

From Kathoon, the Night Watch...I originally came up with these guys to use as cannon fodder for a story I'm writing but I like some of them too much to just kill off now so I am gonna leave them sitting in limbo for a bit...ten points for the first person who gets the team they're a homage to...

Excavator: Camm Grogan created a clunky exoskeleton for the asteroid mining industry which gives its wearer enhanced strength, life support and protection against temperature and pressure changes, as well as layers of physical armor. The suit's sensor suite allows him to scan the physical composition and density of his surrounding environment, and it comes equipped with a blasting weapon. It was deemed impractical to put the suit into mass production, but when Camm saved a bunch of people from a mine collapse at its debut he realised he could put it to better use as a superhero.

Gimmick: Leck Pemberton's family has been filled with heroes from before they left Earth for Kathoon over a century ago. He has no innate powers himself, but his intelligence approaches human maximum and he has an ever-changing arsenal. His trademark gadgets are a supremely adaptable all-purpose tool called the Omnirod and his Tesseract Pouch, a belt-mounted bag which contains a seemingly endless array of bizarre weapons and implements stored in their own dimensional space (most of which he invented himself).

Comet King: Inspired by Comet Queen's origin (which itself was inspired by Star Boy's), Jep Sartro flew his space shuttle directly into the tail of a passing comet. His skin took on a chrome finish which protects him from the rigors of high speed travel, and he gained the ability to fly at super speed.

Bioluminescent Girl: Comet King's twin sister Janna wanted to follow him into a life of adventure, but she also wanted her own unique origin and not one that already belonged to a handful of other heroes. Turning to her work as a marine biologist for inspiration, she scientifically altered her own body chemistry so that she can now produce light at will like some deep-sea fish do. Her power can be used for a gentle illuminating glow or a more powerful blinding attack, but it's most useful somewhere like Kathoon where the world is in perpetual darkness to begin with.

Sea Serpent Sally: A work colleague of Bioluminescent Girl, Sally Marin was exposed to radiations given off by a weird undersea creature native to Kathoon's deepest ocean trenches. This gave her the ability to turn into a gigantic amphibious serpent herself. With practice, she has mastered the ability to partially transform herself, so she can gain the added strength of a hybrid form without losing her human limbs. Bioluminescent Girl persuaded her to use her abilities as a member of the Night Watch.

Nocturna: Anna Nara is the team's second shapeshifter. A native of Earth and archeologist by trade, she found a mysterious mystic amulet which gives her the ability to transform into any nocturnal animal. She applied for Legion membership, but was rejected as her power comes from her amulet and additionally, she can only use her power in the absence of sunlight. Coincidentally, Night Girl and Color Kid saved Anna from an attempted mugging on the way home from her Legion tryout...in gratitude for their help, she decided to move to Kathoon to protect Night Girl's world while the Subs continued their good work on Earth.

White Dwarf and Red Giant: When Euje Pukk and Walla Sesk met at an astrophysics conference, it was love at first sight. They collaborate on many work projects together now and so when a solar flare washed over Walla's space shuttle, both men were irradiated. Euje gained the ability to shrink down to a tenth of his size, though keeping the same mass. This makes him unusually tough the smaller he gets. Walla (already an extremely tall, burly and unusually hairy man) gained the ability to increase his size by a factor of ten. As White Dwarf and Red Giant, they are the two final members of the team.

Ooh, I can't figure out what team you've based them on! I see echoes of Alpha Flight, 'though, but all mixed up with Nocturna being the token alien (like Marrina), but Sea Serpent Sally being more directly like Marrina, while Nocturna's powers, to turn into a very specific grouping of animals, seems more like Snowbird. Excavator's armor sounds like the Groundhog earth-moving armor that was later refined into Guardian/Vindicator's battlesuit. Gimmick with his Tesseract Pouch, seems like a tech version of Shaman. Comet King and Bioluminescent Girl have powers like Northstar and Aurora, and he also experimented on himself to replicate the origin of another hero like Sasquatch (who was attempting to replicate the Hulk's origin), etc. But I could be forcing the parallels...

Edit: Ah, now I see that the shrinker is named Euje Pukk, and any doubts have faded! Alpha Flight it is!

I got lazy with Puck and Sasquatch (White Dwarf and Red Giant) and just threw in two characters I used to use in a role playing game because one is short and the other's a giant, so good work getting it despite those two only vaguely fitting, lol

On another note...it never occurred to me till I wrote this team up that roughly half of the original Alpha Flight had 'animalistic shapeshifter' as their schtick! I guess that's a mark of good characterization when you don't even think about how similar the power types are...

After it's time under the oppressive yet fashionable heel of Sarya, the so-called Emerald Empress, the world of Venegar suffered years more of purges and pograms, as former supporters and enforcers of the Queen's will were hunted down and 'made to pay for their crimes,' occasionally at the hands of the law, but more often by angry mobs of those who suffered under her rule, and had only these 'collaborators' and 'quislings' to take out their pent-up years worth of frustrations upon.

An accusation of being a collaborator was a virtual death sentence, true or not, and some opportunistic souls used such accusations to benefit themselves, discredit or eliminate rivals or even just settle grudges.

All that changed with the arrival of the golden-gauntleted Venegarian hero, Dex Sinister. At first he seemed little more than a super-powered enforcer for the lynching mobs, but he somehow managed to transform the movement from within, and those his posse rounded up were always given over to local authorities, instead of hanged on the spot.

He has demonstrated the ability to fly, golden-armored fist held high, glowing with light like the sun, and to form the golden light into barriers or restraints of energy that resembles liquid gold, but can be strong as diamond. When resistance is met, the golden armor grows like organic crystal to cover the rest of his body in glowing plates of this material, protecting him from harm.

He keeps many secrets, including his true identity, hidden behind a mask pulled up over his lower face, long a symbol of the underground resistance against the Emerald Empress. His true secret is the source of his powers, a cracked golden yellow power ring that fell to Venegar from another dimension entirely, where the bearers of the yellow rings are forces of moderation, defense and restraint, and stand in opposition to the power mad users of the green rings of arrogance. His damaged power ring draws its strength from the fear and anger of others, making Dex Sinister dependent upon his passionate supporters for empowerment, and yet also draining them of their anger and fear, leaving them easier to control and placate, and stemming the terrible sorts of excesses they would perform without their local champion there to drain away their outrage, and channel it from a quest for revenge, to a quest for justice.

Dex Sinister cannot be everywhere, nor halt every excess of the Venegarian mob, but through his example, he provides to the Venegarian a symbol of justice through laws, instead of the crazed revenge of the mob, and is slowly turning the tide, taking some amusement from the knowledge that if he ever truly succeeds at his mission to end 'the Terror of Venegar,' he will have no more howling mobs fuel his damaged power ring with their emotional energy, and will become powerless.

He hopes that when that day comes, he will lose his powers only because Venegar will no longer need his services.

I love the roles of the green and yellow energies being reversed, and Venegar is one of the worlds I have always thought would be cool to explore!

Thanks!

I like noodling around with the Crime Syndicate's Earth 3, where morality is reversed, and I had the notion that the Earth 3 green power rings were rings of arrogance, overconfidence and bullying, prone to selecting self-obsessed megalomaniacs (such as the Earth 3 'green lantern,' Power Ring) as their 'chosen' weilders, while the yellow rings were rings of restraint, moderation and self-control.

And I was looking for an interesting 'hero' for post-Sarya Venegar, and based on my grandmothers experiences in post WW2 France (where an accusation of having been a collaborateur could result in your whole family getting lynched), and a yellow ring that by it's very presence was toning down that sort of auto-de-fe atmosphere seemed like a good fit.

Because I had dealt with a very different version of Venegar previously in my Emerald Legion fic, I kind of forgot that the canon Venegar would likely be a much different place, recovering from one of the 'five worst villains in the universe' conquering it and ruling it for a time!

[tangent]
John Byrne has written that he tossed out the Alpha Flight characters as one-off foes for the X-Men and never intended for them to be anything deeper. When they became popular enough that he was approached about writing a standalone series about them, he was 'Uh, crap.' and felt like he had to basically make stuff up that fit their initial appearance.

He mentioned that, among other things, he *never* would have devoted two of the team's six or seven slots to a pair of twins with exactly the same powers, if he'd been intentionally designing a team for more than a single appearance!

Given how good the Alpha Flight series was under his hand, I shudder to think what the man could have made if he was approached to make a standalone series out of similar throwaway groups like the Imperial Guard.

In a way, having a team designed this way allows a creator greater freedom. When writing a story about, say, the Squadron Supreme, you can make choices (bold or foolish!) that you could never make if you were assigned a property that the company more strictly micro-manages, like the Avengers or the Justice League.

I suspect that this why some creators would rather work with their own creations or 'lesser' properties like X-Factor or Justice League International or the Great Lakes Avengers or Young Justice or the Thunderbolts, than have to deal with all the backseat editorial kibbutzing that goes on when trying to write the Fantastic Four or X-Men or Spiderman or Batman.

Plus it was a different time. If Alpha Flight was written today, in Byrne's two year run, they would have been dragged into a *minimum* of two mega-events, possibly eating up six or more of the twenty-four issues. I think those twenty-four Alpha Flight issues are stronger for not having to participate in a single 'Civil War' or 'Infinite Crisis.'
[/tangent]

Re-reading your Night Watch, it just occured to me that White Dwarf and Red Giant are *perfect* to use the Fastball Special popularized by Wolverine and Colossus. WD shrinks to his hyper-compact form, and RG pitches him at the fight!

(I also like that, white and red, they evoke the Canadian flag, yet another Alpha Flight shout-out!)

Also, Jack Kirby took on Jimmy Olsen rather than Superman.

Though let's not forget some of the really bad things that happen when editors get too hands-off. It's one thing to allow bold new directions, it's another to pay no attention.

Oh, that's true. All things in moderation, I guess.

A un-examined single author story runs the risk of becoming so self-referential or bizarre that it ends up only making sense to the author themself, as there's no outside voice to tell them, 'Hey, this part here? That's messed up...'

We are all our own worst editor.

Raz i love your night watch!

Savothians - The Savothians are a camel-like advanced humanoid species native to the planet Savoth

Tarzana- Felma Banla, like all Savothians, she produces a cotton like fur. However, she produces an extra amount of it, 7 feet extra to be specific. But her fur is also super strong and durable but light weight. She often uses her extra hair to travel around the trees, swinging from branch to branch.

When she was younger her life wasn't the best it could have been. As a child she was raised by her grandmother, who was very weak and disabled. Having to spend much of her time taking care of her align grandmother Felma, didn't have many friends and barely finished school. When she turned 13, he grandmother passed away, leaving her in the foster care system on Savoth; which was nothing more than a sweat shop, where they were all shaved and mined for their fur. this is where she discovered her fur's strength and durability.

One night, when the power went out, she ran out of the sweat shop and rain into the surrounding forest. luckily with the power outage motion sensors were shut off and her chains were easy to unlock with a simple bobby pin.

When she realized how remote the sweat shop was, she realized that there maybe no other help to come for the other children. She felt for them and instead of leaving them to their doom, she decided to do the best she could by becoming a hero of sorts to the children there. she would steal extra food for them and sometimes try to sneak in a toy or two.

the children regarded her as a god send and the guards and staff thought she was nothing more than the children's imagination.

After years of doing her part to make things somewhat better for the kids, she saw a chance to have the place shut down forever. As she did her best to sabotage the entire facility she was able to free some of the children. She got at least half-dozen to safety. But unable to take down the facility permanently, she continues her battle to safe guard the children and free as many as she can.

While the visual of a humanoid camel swinging through the jungle with her Spider-Girl-like fur is an odd one, her backstory is very compelling. A race that enslaves it's own children to harvest resources from them? Yikes!

I like that her journey is just beginning, as well, and she has yet to complete what would be her 'origin story.'

I like the Buddha-like nature of her abandoning her own quest for freedom until she could free the others, as well. Very noble and selfless!

Shimrah Karroc goes by no code-name, and haunts the ferrosilicate sands of the deserts of the western continent of Talokk VIII.

Born hairless and with bright red skin, that was already coarse like leather, the mutant child's superstitious parents quietly disposed of their infant, leaving him in the desert to fend for himself, according to ancient (and long-abandoned!) Talokkian custom.

Somehow, the apparently helpless baby survived for days, his nascent abilities proving sufficient to drive off scavenging predators, and he was discovered, nearly dead of thirst, by a wandering hermit-priestess, who took in the strange child and raised him in the sacred caverns she tended.

His nameless mentor named her adopted child Shimrah Karroc, 'gift of the desert,' in Talokkian, and her 'son' grew quickly and absorbed all that his surrogate mother had to teach him, learning also to control the abilities his strange body developed as he grew. He could burrow through the ferrosilicate sands even faster than a man could run atop them, using a 'swimming' motion, combined with some form of electromagnetic propulsion, as if the iron sands someone pushed him along, moving aside before him and sealing behind to conceal his passage. His body also generated a concentrated acidic secretion that he could expel with great force from his mouth, and in the course of movement through the sands, built up a powerful electrostatic charge, allowing him to burst from the sands with a lightning-like discharge.

His ruddy leathery hide, which darkened with age to a reddish-black coloration, and lean yet flexible body proved to be stronger and more durable than that of the average Talokkian, and he found himself able to easily best any disrespectful raiders who approached his mentor's sacred grounds, bursting up from the ground in a blinding stunning display, and then savagely beating the bewildered raiders back, ducking back beneath the cover of the sands, if truly threatened, able to survive deep beneath their feet holding his breath for up to an hour, aware of the movements of those above him carried through tremors and vibrations within the sands themselves, as if Talokk itself conspired to protect him, and give away his enemies positions.

[In a fit of weirdness, I just had to make a super-hero whose super-power was \'Mongolian Death Worm Physiology.\' ]

thanks Set! that a big compliment.

and i really love that list you gave me as a source! its come in handy big time! so much to play with.

great job! i actually was thinking about the movie Tremors! i love it!

i love the meaning of of his name as well!

i also like how he's both stealthy and has great brute force. that's a combination that's hard to do in most.

Thanks for the kind words!

Tremors is just pure goofy fun. Love that movie.

While flight is very common, and super-leaping / bouncing or super-swimming or teleportation also have their representation, burrowing is a darn rare means of super-travel, so I thought it would be fun to have at least one!

I love this dude...I would love to see Shady take a couple of Legionnaires to Talok VIII and have barbarian-style adventures across the sands coming across local heroes like Mongolian Death Worm Lad here

Oh, I'd kill for a graphic novelization along the lines of John Carter of Mars (the books, not the movie), only set on Talokk VIII and with Shady in the role of John Carter, uniting warring tribes and fighting giant monsters and leading her people against alien manipulators that are trying to take over her world. Sword in one hand, blaster in the other. Oh yes.

Pulpy goodness.

There are several Legionnaires that, if taken completely away from the Legion, and working solo on their homeworlds (or Earth, or elsewhere in the UP), could have some awesome adventures. Saturn Girl on Titan attempting to solve a psycho-thriller murder mystery, dealing with a master telepath who is mind-jobbing other people into committing crimes for him? Projectra dealing with Orandan court intrigues and a brewing revolution against her (admittedly ill-fortuned, at times) rule? Brainy could be at the heart of a great cyberpunk story, or Tinya at the heart of a surreal Gaiman-esque dimensional psychodrama, or Cham deeply mired into a noir detective tale of the gritty underbelly of 31st century Metropolis.

There's a lot of untapped potential there, and different Legionnaires lend themselves to very different sub-genres nicely.

Suffering from a sense of being at war with himself, the man who would become the Carggite hero Uinseach of the Leaping Shadows is no native of Cargg, although he has recently become a naturalized citizen of the world under the triple sun.

Descended from the people of Graxos IV, a world whose elfin natives are famous for their hereditary line of Green Lanterns, such as Arisia Rrab , Uinseach (OON-see-osh) was born to parents who lived on Earth, and had never even been to Graxos IV until his third decade of life, when a spiritual advisor counseled him to travel to his 'homeworld,' to attempt to find himself, as he had drifted into and out of the criminal rehabilitation system for petty crimes, during his misspent youth.

He found no answers to the anger and confusion that marked the man he had been, and the better man he wished to become, on Graxos IV, but on Cargg, bathed in the light of the triple suns in the southern polar city, he saw the three shadows he cast in their light struggle with each other, a visible manifestation of the struggle he was feeling between the disparate parts of his psyche.

He collapsed, and awoke to find that, even in a medical room, under artificial illumination, he still cast three shadows, only the struggle was over, both within and without, and now, feeling at last at peace with himself, he learned to control his triple shadows, which would merge together, or split apart at his will, and could affect the material world as if they possessed physical strength equal to his own, while remaining intangible shadows to the touch. Able to stretch up to 10 meters from where his feet touched the ground, his shadows could grapple and restrain individual, or lift objects and bring them to him, or even pass through transparent obstacles or through a slender opening (to the great surprise of a smuggler he apprehended, who thought himself safe within the pilot's seat of the craft he was stealing to escape, unaware that the 'Leaping Shadow' could pass right through the windshield into the craft, to pin him to his seat!).

Uinseach developed his own physical strength, further enhancing his shadows usefulness, and remained on Cargg to serve as a hero, feeling that he owed a debt to the world that had saved him from his own self-division. He discovered quite painfully that bright light can weaken his shadows, and damaging intensities of light, such as a laser blast, can destroy one of them, a sensation he likens to having a limb torn away (and one that caused him to black out from pain and shock, the first time it happened), although the lost shadow slowly returns over the next few days, wispy insubstantial at first, but gaining in strength and visibility over time.

Darker skinned than his distant relation, Arisia, Uinseach has dark amber skin, appearing brown with golden highlights, and hair of a dark metallic red hue, and tends to dress in fashions reminiscent of New Genesis, which was a fad when he was younger and which he has kept with, even as the rest of the universe long ago moved on. His eyes are a reddish-orange, but flare with blue light when he activates his powers and splits his shadow into three.

Spectrum comes from the world of Korugar, and is descended from the legendary Sinestro, bearing a strong resemblance to his forebear, although choosing to dress in a simple white tunic and breeches, appearing more like a monk's attire than those of a champion or hero.

Spectrum has the power to emanate colored light along the emotional spectrum, evocative of the power rings worn by his famous ancestor, but he cannot create force constructs, or perform any of the other amazing feats of a power ring.

Instead, when he channels the light of the emotional spectrum, it both fills him and all around him with the emotional energy of that color. When he glows red, all around him become filled with anger and rage, and when he glows blue, all around him feel a sense of perseverance and renewed confidence, while a yellow aura fills all with dread and terror, and a violet aura causes all to feel an overwhelming sense of love for all around them.

To call upon this inner light, he has to surrender to the feelings he is projecting, whether it be fear or wrath, determination or love. His eyes change to the color of the predominant emotion he is feeling, and the light shines brightly from his body. After a cruel foe attempted to shut down his powers by blinding him, he learned that he did not need his eyes to project the light of the emotional spectrum, and after having his eyes medically regenerated, continues to serve as a champion to the people of Korugar, quelling disturbances by bringing compassion to those who rise up in anger, or instilling courage and strength of will to those who despair in the face of natural disaster or hardship.

i love this interpretation of the emotional spectrum. i also like that its a descendent of Senistro.

Thanks! I think, with Dex Sinister (with a kind of power ring) and Uinseach of the Leaping Shadows (a member of a 'Green Lantern race') and this guy (both a 'GL race' and with powers related to the emotional spectrum!), I'm gonna step away from the Green Lantern well for a bit.

Too much tapping of that well, I think.

Omni and Set, I am impressed by your respective abilities to re-imagine Universes. This is a little derivative, but you might like it.

In a parallel dimension, orbiting the star they call Shamash, is the Earth-like world of Oceania. It is remarkably Earth-like, although not exactly a parallel Earth.

The greatest hero of Oceania is Hyperman, rocketed to Oceania as an infant, he conceals his identity as the newspaper reporter Chester King.

Fred Hembeck’s heartfelt summary of the old Superman Silver-Age tale is here: http://www.ign.com/articles/2005/08/23/the-fred-hembeck-show-episode-24

But there are other super-heroes on Oceania.

1. Bob White lost his parents to a criminal’s handgun at an early age. He dedicated his life to learning criminology, martial arts, and a hundred other skills. Ready at last to begin his campaign against crime, he stood at the window of his mansion, gazing out into the night. “Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot,” he mused. “I will become a… a…”

Just then, he was startled by the reflection in the window of his faithful butler’s shadow. “I will become a fearsome Spectre!” he resolved.

Now, as the green-and-gray-clad Spectre, he fights crime with his sidekick, the acrobatic teen Dirk Grantham, the scarlet-clad Deadman.

Spectre-cave, Spectre-mobile, Spectre-plane, Spectarangs, and all.


2. Given a ring of power by the Sentinels of the Galaxy, test pilot Howard Johnson battles evil with the green energies of the Flash.

3. Princess Deborah left the Assyrian Amazons of hidden Paradise Valley to join the “Man’s World” as the protector of right, Manhunter, wearing the purple-and-gold of her adopted nation’s flag.

4. When J’yym J’ymzz was accidentally transported to Oceania from Marduk, the fourth planet, he adopted a blonde-haired, fair-skinned identity as the green-and-blue-clad Superman. And as black police detective Jim James, he has an unfair advantage over the criminal element with his Mardukite telepathy, shape-shifting, and a host of other powers.

5. His powers granted by a lab accident, Brett Andrews is secretly the super-speedster Black Lightning

6. Shipwrecked on a tropical island, millionaire Oscar Quest was forced to learn to survive in the jungle by making his own bows and arrows. Now he fights crime in the metropolis of Stellar City as a mysterious green-clad hero. On his first excursion, he thwarted a bank robbery. The bank guard took one look at him and asked, “Who do you think you are? Robin Hood?” Oscar replied, “Just call me Robin—I’m no hood.” His partner is teen-aged Rick Hales, Mr. Scarlet.

7. Often joining Oscar is Drew Lincoln, the martial artist who calls herself Black Orchid.

8. Kyrzn and Shyba Hyl, members of the Bat-Police Force of Thothagar, they assumed the dual identities of Carson and Sheba Hill, and the super-heroes Batman and Batwoman

9. The human incarnation of the Spirit of Vengeance, is the late John Carmichael, known by his proper name of Naqamael.

How does this relate to the Legion? When Chester King and Lydia Long’s daughter Leah gets lost in time and space, she shows up in the 31st-century as Hypergirl.

Ooh, some interesting shuffling of characters and backstories! I'm particularly fond of the Assyrian Amazon, Manhunter (and the purple-and-gold colors, more often associated with Wonder Woman's arch-foe, Circe), but the 'Bat-Police of Thothagar' are also fun sounding. Also loving the fourth planet being named after the Babylonian Marduk, instead of the Roman Mars!

Perhaps Oceania has an Aquaman analogue who is instead a member of a subterranean civilization of 'morlocks' or 'mole-people' that sank into the earth in prehistory? Using his people's evolved ability to manipulate seismic vibrations, their prince-champion Vibe represents the kingdoms of the Lost World as a hero to the surface folk!

That is some nifty re-imagining....I kind of wanna see Spectre and Deadman as well as the bat-police of Thothagar now!

Agreed! Klar Ken, you did a really fun reimagination of these characters.

i'd love to see more of the Bat Police of Thothagar as well!

One thing I like, as mentioned above, is the use of non-classical mythologies / cultures, such as Assyrian Amazons or a 'Mars' named after the Babylonian Marduk.

Finding out that the bat-Thanagarians, instead of having some nebulous ties to ancient Egypt, instead were tied to the Mayans, and might have served as an inspiration for the bat-god Camazotz, could be funky. (I can't think of any other cultures that had a prominent bat-god, so Mayans it is!)

Well, I am notoriously unartistic, but here are Hero Machines of the Spectre and Deadman the Boy Wonder of Oceania:





And the Batman and Batwoman of Thothagar

If Oceania doesn't have an Aquaman, what planet would?

Ah, but our planet is named Terra, and is 76% covered by water.

Perhaps 'Oceania' is 76% covered with earth, and has smaller oceans than 'Terra?'

Either way, a 'mole man' type hero, from a mythical kingdom that sank into the depths of the earth, would be a neat twist on the Atlantis legends of our world.

Plus the absurdity of a hero named Vibe in the big boy Leagues tickles my funny bone. It's gone so well in the past, after all...

But an underground analogue of Aquaman would have the ability to tunnel rapidly through the soil, breathe dirt, and be able to telepathically communicate with moles, voles, gophers, worms, dung beetles...

And could not survive more than one hour at a time above ground...

Terra-Man!

I missed the part about the Aqua-analogue being underground instead of underwater. I just saw the incongruity of a place named Oceania being without an Aquaman and had to comment.

So, a couple of pages ago, I plotzed down a five-woman team of Competalians , and the day *after* posting, I remembered that these Competalians were designed to be 'DC's Inhumans,' complete with the occasional exotic individual appearances as a result / side-effect of the procedure that empowers them.

So my imagination immediately set to work jazzing up their appearances;

Miss Behave, like most of the Ladies of Misschief, is humanoid, with yellow skin decorated with zebra like stripes of bold red. In place of hair, she has a gigantic mane of feathers, red, orange and yellow, that attaches to her head, where a human would have hair, as well as additional manes attaching to her shoulders and hips, a smaller triangle of feathers attached to her breastbone and longer plume of feathers at the base of her spine, trailing from a short triangular tail-like structure. Her build is slightly more slender than the average, and she has three long graceful fingers and three toes (as well as 'thumbs') on each hand and foot, each with a prominent nail, colored bright red. She wears gauzy outfits that are sheer and mostly translucent, the better to show off her exotic coloration and feathery body adornment.

Miss Direction is a hairless humanoid female with pale blue skin. Unlike the source picture, her body surface appears to be covered with hexagonal patterns, made of raised ridges of skin and cartiledge, appearing as little more than patterns across most of her body, and shrinking in size in finer areas, such as her face and fingers, but growing to larger scale and definition atop the crown of her head, giving it a slightly unnatural / mechanical look, as if her body was pieced together from hundreds of differently sized hexagonal sub-units.

Miss Fire is a humanoid woman of apparent African ancestry, based on her skin tones and facial structure (suggesting that Competalians, like many other humanoid aliens, share a common ancestry with humans). While completely human in appearance, she also is hairless (having burned her hair off in an accident) and covers her shaved head with an ungainly looking spikey headdress of golden metal, from which dangle dozens of strands of tiny semi-precious gemstones of every dazzling color, shape and size, in place of 'hair.' She prefers to wear green and gold outfits cut asymmetrically, or in odd patterns (long baggy trousers, no sleeves *or* mini-skirt with long baggy sleeved blouse), as well as some thick clunky jewelry (more akin to pectorals, torcs or bracers than necklaces or bracelets).

Miss Fortune has skin so pale as to be translucent, showing off her pale violet musculature, her flourescent green arteries and her darker purple-black veins in a garish and phantasmagorical display. Her hair is full and thick, like a stylized mane, and stands slightly aware from her body, holding itself in place via a slight electrostatic shock. The hair on the side facing those she is looking at is bright blue, and viewing her from behind, the outer surfaces of the hairs are a bold red. (The curvature of her preferred hairstyle results in those in front of her seeing the blue hair framing her face, and the outer edges of the 'mane' being bold red, framing the blue inner hair). Despite it's fragile appearance, her skin is a tougher and more elastic than it looks, and Miss Fortune prefers to wear form fitting metal body ornamentation, in place of cloth, the feel of which she finds irritating.

Miss Take appears to be a member of an aquatic species, with light green skin with bright blue ovals of countershading (and smaller patterns of blue dots trailing along her limbs). She has fin-like structures atop her head, along the backs of her calves, and the outer sides of her forearms (starting just below the pinky finger and extending to the elbows). These fins can fold back, or stand out, as she desires, and fine anemone like strands of 'hair' (that rise up and begin waving around when she's underwater, but otherwise lie flat against her skull) reside on the sides of her head, pale brown / tan in color and growing on both sides of her head, divided into two areas by her central head-fin. Tan coral-like structures, the same color as her 'hair,' sprout from her shoulders, temple, brow, ribs, and hips, as well as the back of her head. Despite her aquatic appearance, she cannot breathe underwater, but can hold her breath for about 45 minutes, safely ingest saltwater and is an excellent swimmer, often wearing little more than a dark blue one-piece bathing suit and some sort of gauzy wrap around cloth in translucent seafoam green.

Where's the fun of having a bunch of exotic 'Inhuman' like aliens, if they all look more or less like humans, after all!

So here are a couple.

Officer Ffolx of Carggg:
Arona Ffolx is the descendant of a Green Lantern. Although the power ring is long gone, her great-grandmother’s power battery has been a family heirloom for scores of years. In fact, it served as a night-light for little Arona in her crib.

What no one could know was that over the years, the power battery had degraded, and Arona was exposed to a corrupted green radiation as she slept.

As a very young child, it was discovered that when she triplicated, two of her selves were surrounded in a pale greenish glow, almost invisible by day under the bright triple suns of Carggg, but clearly apparent indoors, and especially at night. Doctors could find no physical problem, but still, it set her apart as different.

Then came the episode. One day, as the pre-teen Arona was triplicating, her father walked suddenly into the room. Surprised, she turned her attention on him— a viridian bolt lept from her chest, striking her father, and Arona’s manifesting luminous duplicates assumed his appearance.

Following the family tradition, Arona became a member of the Cargggan Science Police. Her peculiarity serves her well. She merely has to concentrate on an opponent, and in a flash of light she has created two duplicates of her target. Most Cargggans are terribly confused as their three selves face Officer Ffolx and two copies of themselves. She is, like all CSPs, well-trained in tri-jitsu, and so has a distinct advantage, even against a much stronger opponent.

Her powers are limited: she can duplicate beings of about human size or smaller: a wolf or panther is within her abilities, but not an elephant. She can also duplicate inanimate objects, such as a target’s clothing or weapons, but also say, a tree, bicycle or desktop computer. As purely inanimate objects, her duplicates do not have the ability to move. Otherwise her duplicates are entirely under her control—that is, controlled by her triple consciousness, just like ordinary Cargggans.

Looking-Glass Lass of Tharn:
Like many of the inhabitants of Tharn, the Sorceror’s World, her true name is a secret. She is commonly known, however, as Alis Klogsong (an anagram of “looking-glass”). Her magical abilities are limited. Aside from the ordinary, daily magic which is necessary in order to interact with Sorceror’s World technology, she can only perform one spell—a sort of magical “talent”: she can instantaneously rotate any object by 180°.

This is extraordinarily confusing for living beings who are rotated: one might find oneself suddenly facing back-to-front, or upside-down, or, most confusing of all, mirror-reversed, in which (from one’s own point of view) left has become right and right has become left throughout the whole universe.

She is the youngest member of her local town Coventry; this is somewhat analogous to a combination City Council and School Board, here on 21st-century Earth.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of such single-talented sorcerers on Tharn.

Officer Ffolx (cool name, btw!) seems like she'd be much more effective off of Cargg, where she could manifest two duplicates of her (generally single) opponents! Do the duplicates have the abilities / skills / knowledge of their 'hosts,' or merely the appearance? (They obviously *also* would have her knowledge, if she can use trijutsu with her dupes, but if she, say, ran into a Braalian crook, and was able to double-team with with a pair of magnokinetic dupes, in addition to her own self, that could rock!)

The last line in Looking-Glass Lass' writeup, "There are probably hundreds of thousands of such single-talented sorcerers on Tharn." is inspiring!

I had meant to write up a Sorcerer's Seven team from the Sorcerer's World (less a 'superhero team' and more of a 31st century gathering of mystically inclined folk, like the motley crew John Constantine often hangs out with), but, other than the Thanagarian priest and the Orandan mage-knight, never really got around to it.

Neat ideas!

My concept of Tharn, the Sorcerer’s World:
Tharn is a world of seven continents, six in the northern hemisphere and seven in the southern.
It is home to ten billion sorcerers, about one-fiftieth of whom are of Terran origin.
Alien races and climates range from the Star Yeti in the hyperborean mountains to the Andorran Nagas in the equatorial desert lowlands.
Important mostly-human metropolitan areas are Nuevo Paulo, Emerald City, the Oxford Mage School, and Merlinopolis.
Gateways exist all over the planet connecting to Faerth (Fairyland).

Magical characters are like popcorn. Once I start, I just can’t stop. Remember that for most of them, these are not their actual names:

Some are based on DC Continuities:
Clavanatus – He is probably not really a middle-aged Captain Marvel, but he likes people to think he is.
Marveiia—Clavanatus’ protégé
Lgxqzryp: A half-human, half-Zrfffn, he can transmute any object into another by speaking his name backwards.
Qumbo of Xeen—A kilometer-tall giant with a magic ring which reduces him to only seven feet tall.
Zatamazzar—When he speaks his spells backwards, he projects illusions
The Indigo Warlock—A member of the Indigo Tribe, he is a soul of great power and deep compassion, a combination of Superman, Green Lantern and the Dali Lama. Tall and slender, with white skin and hair, green eyes, blue sclera, blue lips, and a perpetual beatific smile.
A thousand years ago, he was the Joker.

Some are adapted from literature:
Tolkien the Hobbit, Master of the Comfortable Magicks
Allison Wonderland
Ozmarda
Ythorod the Witch-Killer
Xorpia the Shoggoth

Some are originals:
Doctor Tengu
Elwin Elviston
Jon Falstaff, the Food Mage
Volallier & Chanticleer
Sidheane, the Composite Elemental
Grimoire, a sentient computer
Gwendolyn the Vermilion
Reparo the Silver
Mite the Dwarf and his magic axe
Stardust Spacedevil
Captain Wizard
Odd Duck
Hexxess the Enchanter
Kashaph the Potionmaster
Chorus Celeste, the Occultress

Some take the names of former great wizards:
Babushka Baba Yaga (not the original)
Lung Mo (not the original)
Strega Befana, the Gingerbread Witch (not the original)
Gwalchavad (not the original)
Groucho Marx (not the original) (Actually a Coluan student of sorcery who has embraced absurdism—blond afro, derby hat, rumpled trenchcoat. Performs his spells with a magic wand in the shape of a bulb horn. Inventor of the Fuzzy Pink Bunny Slippers of Invisibility.)

That is absurd, calling yourself Groucho while dressing like Harpo.

Then again it could just be one of the more minor data errors stemming from the Great Crisis of Historical Records (do they still even use that?)

Well, naturally I MEANT Harpo. He even throws a Gookie occasionally.
But now that made the mistake, I think I will leave it as canon.

The most interesting things in comics have always been the rationalizations of mistakes.

I got a giggle from his mention of the Dali Lama, myself.

Salvadore Dali mixed with the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism? Yikes!

Seriously, though, a thousand year old Joker as a reformed enlightened leader of the order of compassion is a pretty out there idea, but I like it.

Kurt Busiek would have nothing to write about, if not for unknotting tangled continuity and making up stuff to make it all work out!

Roy Thomas liked to do a fair bit of that too didn't he? Or am I mixing up the two?

• Salvador Dali Lama sounds like a Doom Patrol villain.
• At least its better than Dolly Llama.
• And Harpo classically wears a top hat, not a derby. The derby belonged to Chico.
• To avoid, or possibly enhance, any further confusion, here are the pictures:


GROUCHO MARX circa 1940


<strike>HARPO MARX</strike> “GROUCHO MARX” circa 3013

I would be pleased to see him standing in the background next time a DC artist re-visits the Sorcerer’s World.


* As far as Officer Ffolx is concerned, since her duplicates are partially created by green lantern energy, I would imagine that duplicate Lightning Lads would shoot green lightning, and duplicate Sun Boys would shoot green sun energy. However, I don’t believe memories and skills would pass over; so her powers would be pretty much useless against, say, the White Witch or Karate Kid. On the other hand, she ought to be pretty formidable against four out of five of the Fatal Five—but Validus is just too big for her to duplicate.
(On the other hand, I would suppose that she could duplicate a normal-sized Colossal Boy, and they could grow to a giant size otherwise beyond her limits.)


A fuller rendering of the Indigo Warlock’s origin story:

Superman, at one time, created a serum which gave temporary super-powers to ordinary Earthlings. Lana Lang and Lois Lane were each at one time recipients of this serum.



Eventually, Lex Luthor reverse-engineered the formula. At a particular time when Lex was incapacitated, and the Joker was out of Arkham, the Joker broke into Luthor’s secret vault at Lexcorp and stole the superpower formula.

Immediately upon ingesting it, he used his newly acquired super-senses to discover Superman’s secret identity—and in his haste to confront the Man of Steel as Clark Kent, blasted holes through several buildings, incidentally killing a half-dozen people. Not that he regretted it.

You have to think of this in the future as we know it, possibly on the other side of Kingdom Come. (if it ever happened) Clark is going gray, but not yet retirement age. He is very experienced. He quickly takes the Superman vs. Super-Joker battle off-Earth, to prevent further destruction. Fittingly for the Joker, they end up on one of the moons of Uranus. Hoo-ha, does J have fun with that one. (Probably Oberon or Titania. There is enough of an atmosphere for the Joker to taunt Superman mercilessly.) But there is no real contest: not only is the Joker inexperienced with super-powers, but the super-serum only empowers humans to sub-Kryptonian levels. All Superman has to do is keep the Joker from hurting anyone until the serum wears off.

However, as the Joker mocks him, Superman realizes that his friends and family are no longer safe. Even without powers, the Joker is a homicidal maniac. He would unquestionably escape from Arkham again. He could probably ultimately engineer an escape from the Phantom Zone or Kandor. And he is enough of a chemist that he could ultimately reproduce the super-serum again. Superman comes to a fateful decision: after all these years, he must do what Batman could never do, and kill the Joker.

All of this internal dialog has been occurring as the Joker has been making effort after effort to get past Superman, and back to Earth, where he can cause some real trouble. As he makes his decision, he grapples with the Joker again, this time ready to break his neck…

There is a flash of indigo light. Superman is knocked away from his opponent, crashing through miles of rock. An Indigo Lantern has appeared, fighting on the side of the Joker, turning the tide in his favor. The Joker stares enviously at the indigo-tipped staff.

“If that thing can do that to Superman, I have to have one,” he cries.

The Indigo Lantern proffers the staff. The Joker takes it, just as Superman returns.

“I could not let you break you oath,” the Indigo Lantern addresses Superman. “I could not let you kill.”

He then dissolves into dust. And the Proselyte Entity takes over the Joker.

The Joker’s last words to Superman, before he leaves for the depths of interstellar space, are:

“Kill me. Please kill me. Nothing is funny anymore.”

And then the mad personality that once was the Joker is gone. There is only the Indigo Warlock.

The indigo light has preserved the sub-Kryptonian super-powers the Joker had at the time he became an Indigo Lantern. Over the years, the green has been bleached from his hair and nails: he is pure white, except for the bluish coloring in his eyes and lips. It has also made him essentially immortal, or at least very long-lived. However, should he ever be allowed to give up the staff, he would crumble into dust, just as his predecessor.

Few people know his history. I would suppose that Sodam Yat either knows or suspects. Mordru probably knows, but doesn’t care.

The Joker is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands. The Indigo Warlock has, over the years, saved the lives of billions. But one does not balance the other. They are simply independent facts. It is as if these actions were attributable to two different individuals. The Indigo Warlock is the unwilling tool of the Proselyte Entity, nothing more.

By coincidence, there is actually a font available called Indigo Joker.


More heroes of the Sorcerer’s World:
Amulette, the Collector (specializes in classical fairy-tale gear- seven-league boots, water of life, ever-filled purses, poisoned apples, etc.)

Gaziyth, originally of the Obsidian Folk of Stoneworld: a living Philosopher’s Stone

Vrolokina, a vampire mosquito-fairy
Due to an unfortunate incident with a Fountain of Youth, the immortal Jason Blood is temporarily a teen-ager. Living on the Sorcerer’s World. And bound to a teen Etrigan. Again.

Utmylgh, a Gil’Disphan sorcerer whose magic doesn’t make sense to those with a terrestrial mindset.

Coppelia, the doll girl: A "doll elemental" like Brother Power the Geek, she originally manifested on Daxam, so is virtually invulnerable. However, she hits like a rag doll.

I love these Sorceror's World ideas! Amulette and Coppelia sound fun, and a Gil'Dishpan sorceror sounds full of creepy/awesome potential!

These ten characters seem so obvious to me that I don’t think any further elaboration is necessary.

1 MoonHawk & SunHawk (husband & wife) – Planetary Champions of Thanagar

2 Dono & Mara (brother & sister) – Planetary Champions of Kormo

3 Superma & Superbo (mother & son) – Planetary Champions of Almerac

4 Ubuntu & Satyagraha (father & daughter) – Planetary Champions of Myrnah

5 Parsifal & Quixote (brothers) – Planetary Champions of Avalon

Daxam- During the Great Darkness, the New God known as Darkside corrupted the people of Daxam, controlling them and boosting their power levles to rule the universe. But The Legion was able to defeat Darkside's rule.

even though Darkside was gone his taint was still deep within some of the Damaxites.

The average Damaxite doesn't have any super powers under a red sun. But what no one knew was that even though Darkside wasn't in power long he was there long enough to sire several off spring that are half Damaxite and half New God.

Now they are in hiding with their mothers who still worship Darkside. They have formed a clan of their own that lives out in the dessert lands of Damax's southern hemisphere.

They roam the dessert gather materials and followers for the day when Darkside will return. They defend their settlement fiercely and are seen as out laws. One of them is the leader of this pack and rules his clan with an iron fist much like his father, who reveals in torture and pain.

Larn Fald- the eldest of the Children of Darkside. He resembles Darkside the most. His height and weight are that of the average Damaxites but his skin is a hard shell hide of rock just like his father. He is also strong and near invulnerable to most physical attacks.

As the eldest son, he automatically ascends to the role of clan leader upon turning 15. He remains in this role till the return of his father. As he is a son of Darkside he is imbued with the knowledge of the new gods and apolokpis. Due to this he follows the ways of apolokpis to the best of his abilities, punishing those who don't obey and punish those who do.

The way he does this is that he possesses a power that his father does not. He has the power of persuasion. This ability comes from a latent meta gene with in his mothers side of the family. Her family for generations were senators and held various seats of power influence in large part due to their persuasive abilities. but with their gene's combined with that of Darkside it brings it to a whole new level.

there have been rumblings lately that Larn has finally amassed enough followers to rise a revolt and stage the settings to bring back Darkside.

I much prefer this take on a Darkseid cult to what we got in the comic...Larn Fald on his own would be a good foe even if they never get round to bringing Darkseid back!

I love the idea of expanding on what sort of long-term effects the Great Darkness Saga would have had on the people of Daxam.

A race of people who spent at least *ten centuries* capable of spaceflight, surrounded by an interstellar community, but forced to remain at home, due to their weakness to lead, which they are pretty much sure was engineered to keep them homebound.

And then they get a taste of the power that is, quite literally, their birthright. Yes, they lacked control, but they surely *remember* what it was like to soar through space, to descend upon worlds, and to be *feared.* From an introspective race, on the edge of utter irrelevance to matters of UP import, to the most terrifyingly relevant people in the universe, it must have been a bit of culture shock, even after the effects of Darkseid's control where a distant memory. While homebodies, the Daxamites aren't totally cut off from the rest of the UP through long-distance communiction, and while few would say it to a Daxamites face, everybody in the UP didn't magically forget what happened. Researchers who may have thought of themselves as good friends and colleagues of Daxamite researchers they'd never physically met may suddenly have found themselves less comfortable with their 'old friends.'

A lot of people would be quietly saying, behind closed doors, 'It's a good thing they can't leave Daxam, but even *that* isn't a foolproof solution, as we've just seen...'

And at least some Daxamites, quite possibly *a lot* of Daxamites, would be idly dreaming of what it was like to be able to fly into space and cross the void between worlds, afraid of nothing, able to go anywhere, and do anything...

Even if a Darkseid cultist *didn't* have unnatural powers of persuasion, it seems likely that there would be an audience receptive to those sorts of sentiments. Darkseid himself may not be remembered fondly by all, or even by more than a tiny minority, but he was the one who showed them that they didn't *have* to remain trapped on the prison that is their homeworld, so that the more subtle 'cultist' might stress the need to trust the message of Daxamite freedom and independence, if not the messenger that was Darkseid.

Random thoughts;

Fifteen seems a little old (since it suggests that the Great Darkness Saga happened fifteen years ago, which would make the Legionnaires who were already adults then perhaps forty or so 'now'...).

On the one hand, if the child was five or so, and yet had an unnaturally adult perspective (almost as if there was something of his father lurking behind his child's eyes...), that could be creepy and push the timeline back a bit.

On the other hand, nothing exists in canon to contradict the idea that Darkseid hadn't been planning this for a long time, growing clones of Superman and Lydea Mallor and some random Oan Guardian, for instance, and hadn't visited Daxam a decade before the Great Darkness Saga to 'plant some seeds' for his future plan.

It's also entirely possible that the 'Children of Darkseid' aren't 100% accurate as to their exact parentage, and are descendents of some hitherto nameless Apokaliptan New God *servants* of Darkseid (one or more of whom, like Orion and Kalibak, may have actually been descended from Darkseid!) who went to Daxam to 'prepare the way' for their master's decade-later arrival.

thanks Raz. he would make for an interesting villain.

especially if he was combined with some of the ideas Set mentioned.

i have never actually read The Great Darkness. everything i used was just from what i read on Wikipedia. But i love a lot of your concepts about freedom and independence that they would feel. your totally right. i just thought an event like that would have a lasting affect on the people.
and i kind of think of it as like a Greek myth, like Hercules except instead of Zeus we have Darkside.

his being 15 was more to put him on par with the Legion and being able to fight them now. When TGD happens he was just a baby. i like the concept that some of the "Children of Darkside" aren't actually his biological children but maybe those of the other new gods.

Krypton and Daxam are huge.

At least ten times the diameter of Earth, four to five times the density, with gravitation forty to fifty times that of Earth. Krypton, at least, was so massive that spontaneous nuclear fusion was occurring at its core.

Krypton was said to have a hundred billion inhabitants at the end-- about 1/7th the population density of 21st-century Earth. (Assuming a similar land-to-sea ratio) Similar to the United States-- plenty of room for big cities, but still lots of open space.

I imagine Daxam as having a population of less than a billion. A very small population for such a large planet. Imagine the entire human population living in Belgium; the rest of the world would be untouched wilderness.

What might be hiding in that vast, untouched wilderness?

The Darkseid Cult, apparently.

I am not sure most Daxamites feel "trapped" on Daxam. They have been portrayed as mostly homebodies, isolated, xenophobic and parochial, possibly with an constitution more like Hobbits than Terrans. (Of course, there is always the occasional Took or Baggins, but those are outliers, like Ol-Vir and Res-Vir.)

I have sometimes thought that the Daxamite wilderness is where Nam-Ek eventually ended up.

I'd tend to agree with the relatively small population. They've been a super-advanced (capable of interstellar space flight) civilization for over 1000 years, and birth rates tend to plummet in older societies.

But even if there's only a *million* of them, and 99% of them are totally happy on Daxam, that would leave 10,000 (the 1% leftover) that might look up to the stars and think it unfair that every other UP race has that entire universe to play with. Even if it was only one-tenth of 1% that longed for something more (or remembered somewhat fondly feeling all-powerful, under the red sun), that's 1000 potential Darkseid cultists...

Even *one* Daxamite nutjob (like Ol-Vir) can be terrifying. A dinky little cult the size of the Waco group made up of individuals who can potentially match Superman for power is exponentially more so, I think.

From a pocket dimension not unlike Marzal, which can be accessed from Baja California;

Queen Khalifiya and her amazons occasionally ride forth from the extradimensional realm her people settled, astride the magnificent griffons that have been extinct on earth for well over two millenia.

Led by an elite group of female warriors possessed of superhuman strength, vitality and longevity, the people of her hidden realm are of African descent, and follow a more worldly branch of Sufi Islam that seeks perfect understanding of the divine through scientific research, philosophical discourse and artistic expression.

While her elite warriors ride their great griffons directly, the Queen herself appears astride a flying chariot pulled by a pair of ebon-winged specimens of unusual size, and commands greater physical strength than her already superhuman guards, proving able to fire arrows through the hulls of Khundian attack ships!

It is unclear if Queen Khalifiya is the same person who led her people through the dimensional rift to settle this realm millenia ago, or merely the latest to bear this name, but the legend, often disputed as myth, has been proven true time and again as her people emerge to help deal with threats to the earth itself, lending their not-inconsiderable aid, and then returning to their own hidden realm.

[Bizarro Yellow Lantern Le-Mon
When the Universe of 31st-century Htrae, the cubic Bizarro-World, was threatened with destruction in the Great Crisis, all the inhabitants rejoiced—except one. Le-Mon, the Bizarro duplicate of Lar Gand, was filled with terror. Of course, Le-Mon is always filled with terror, just as Green Lanterns are ever fearless. His super-cowardice activated his “powerless ring”, which projected a protective field around Htrae, assuring that it would always continue to exist somewhere in the Multiverse no matter how many times history was retrobooted.

Thus, for no good or logical reason, the Silver Age Bizarro World of Htrae exists in the current 31st-century world of the Legion.

Having saved Htrae from destruction, Bizarro Yellow Lantern Le-Mon is shunned, hated and reviled by all other Bizarros—and is therefore Bizarro World’s Planetary Champion, its greatest hero. Which terrifies him.

Love the idea of a planet that's immune to reboots.

Agreed love your bizarro world!

no reboots? i'll take a world like that please!

Well that's certainly an ironic post when combined with your current sig.

I have had Bizarros on the brain the past few days because I am trying to come up with a way to insert some into my series, so I was mightily tickled that you chose that exact topic, Mr T5477!

That is a brilliant and super simple way to do it too...kudos!

I love that Mon-El's name is an anagram of 'Lemon.' I never would have noticed that!

The 'super-cowardice' activating his 'powerless ring' was a touch of mad genius. Very cool!

Anndrann - The green skinned military geniuses Anndrann of Anndranna were later banished to Bellatrix, and are famed for their weapons of war. Iron has a deleterious effect on their cognitive abilities.

Metrixx-Kanndrnn, Once a general in the Anndrann army, before Anndranna was being defeated in the war between them and the U.P.; which got them banished. during his time as a general he became an expert in tactics. During the final battle his ship, which was the newest toy of the Anndrann army, was struck from behind damaging its back thrusters and causing them to over heat and exploding the ship.
Going down with the ship everyone thought he was dead. But he was rescued by U.P. secret forces for interrogation and brought to the hospital, The Doctors in the U.P. hospital were unfamiliar with the exact physiologists of Anndrannins; as they kept all weakness top secret. They fused his left side with metal to stop the bleeding and to save his life. The metal they used was Iron. they didn't know that Iron causes a deleterious effect on Anndrannins. Normally a small dose of Iron would only make him become slightly out of sorts. often making him have small flash backs to various battles he's fought. These flashbacks only lasted for a second. But fused with this much Iron, he has now become almost psychotic and is reliving his battles in his mind over and over again. At first he was hard to control. even escaping on a few occasions. One such incident of that was when he was reliving the snapping of A diplomat from another world's neck, as a special task force member to the Anndranian army. But in reality he had killed the hospital's resident head doctor.

Finally subduing him after several more deaths, they put him in to cry o-statis, till they could figure out how to treat him.

almost 600 years has passed since then. Recently he was awakened. Using much of the same technology that was used to create Tharok, they have figured out a way to use his delusions usefully and still have full metal capacity to follow orders. He now only can assess the memories in moments of extreme aggression.

The technology has also increased his capacity for learning and tactical simulations. The U.P. sought to train him as part of the ever secretive Earthgrov special task forces. On his first mission, he completed flawlessly but then he escaped to his home world. Seeing that the way of his people had been changed. that they had moved to a new world and forced into submission angered him. He wanted to fight back for them but he realized that the war he was fight had long since been over for his people and he returned to Earthgrov willingly.

Now we need a fanfic of Tharok vs. Metrixx-Kanndrnn. Was this how Tharok ended up in U.P. custody in the first place, before the Legion?

Polla Reymar is a native of the Dollworld, a planet inhabited by humanoids all less than 1 meter tall. Only half-Dollan, Polla has inherited from her Imskian father the ability to shrink to microscopic size. Due to a bizarre interaction of Krill and Dollan DNA, she is also able to reduce her mass and size independently.

Like all Imskians, she is also able to reduce objects which she carries. However, keeping a large object reduced in size is tiring. For example, reducing the size of another person is as tiring as carrying that person around on her back.

A student at Bergen High School by day, she fights crime on Dollworld as Atoma, in a costume that is an homage to the 21st-century Earth’s Atom.

Polla collects sculptures, statuary, and tchochkes from Imsk, and her room is filled with them: wood, stone, and metal objects which have been naturally irradiated by Imsk’s white dwarf sun, Irulan. She keeps them readily available, as she must regulary bathe in this unique radiation to maintain her powers.

As Polla: Height: 2’6” (77 cm) Weight: 13 lbs (6 kg)
As Atoma: (default) Height: 2 ½ inches Weight: 1/20 oz. (3.5 grams)

I suppose that Atoma must be a member of some sort of “Justice League” of Dollworld, teamed with other miniature heroes. Super-Mannequin, Bumblebee-Batman, Green Dart, Black Hummingbird, and so forth.

i think this is an awesome idea! maybe Tharok found a way to manipulate Metrixx-Kanndrnn, into thinking he was Tharok and that's how Tharok has been able to stay hidden.

i like this idea a lot.

i just have one question, is Imsks is the same as Dollworld or are they different??

and if she's only half, Imskian that what is the other half like? Does her Krill half have any powers of its own???

Woo, first post on the new boards!

In the middle of the last century, the Murran global civilization split apart in a terrifying internal war, which lasted for twelve years, before one side, desperate that they were about to lose completely and on all fronts, unleashed a bioweapon meant to only affect their enemies.

As bioweapons do, it spread far beyond its creators intentions, and soon the entire world was afflicted with a degenerative genetic disease, causing them to suffer effects similar to that of intense radiation poisoning. Reeling from the effects of their own engineered doomsday weapon, and the sudden loss of their governing body to a last desperate attack by their enemies, the researchers who had designed the weapon sued for peace with the leaders of the more advanced enemy, combining their resources and research to attempt to find a cure for what had become an existential threat to all Murrans.

A fifth of all Murrans died in the next month, before the joint task force developed a cure, of sorts, a pill that would stimulate a dormant segment of Murran DNA to 'fill in the blanks' of the decaying segments of the Murran genome, arresting the progress of the disease, and, to everyone's surprise, awakening the latent Murran metagene, so that every Murran who received the cure also developed a metahuman power!

Decades passed, and the Murrans came into contact with the United Planets, and realized that not all species shared their fantastic abilities. Arrogant in their apparent uniqueness, the Murran government chose to infiltrate the Legion of Super-Heroes, as a prelude to a full scale invasion of the undefended worlds of the United Planets, thinking that only fellow metahumans, such as the Legion, could represent a threat to their meta-genetic superiority.

The Legion anticipated and foiled the Murran invasion almost before it happened, and the Legion not only destroyed the Murran processing and distribution centers for their meta-gene stimulating 'power pills,' but assured that the Murrans could not quickly replace these facilities, as Brainiac 5 seeded the Murran computer infrastructure with a virus that deleted all references to the formula for the power pills, and Saturn Girl erased from the minds of the scientists who oversaw the creation of these pills all knowledge of how to recreate them.

In a world with hundreds of thousands of superhumans, it should come as no surprise that many dozens found ways to hoard and preserve their own supplies of 'power pills.' Some short-sighted individuals found themselves unable to access their caches, when their powers wore off, having stored them in capsules buried deep within the earth, or far below the sea, or in similar difficult-to-reach locations, in an attempt to hide them from the Legionnaires' search. Others intended to sell them to the highest bidder, or ration them out only to friends and family, or even to build up untouchable criminal organizations, being the only people left on Murra with superhuman abilities! A teenaged girl named Lia Frex was one such opportunist, having stolen her entire families ration of power pills and flown them to hide on Murra's moon, using her own metahuman ability, to generate a fiery plume of smoke and force from the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands, and blast off like a rocket into space, faster than any spaceship. She was clever enough to keep a handful for her own use, so that she would be able to return to the moon to reclaim her cache when the Legion left, and had every intention of sharing her hoard with her family, unlike some of her less noble-minded peers.

Within a week of the Legion's departure, it was discovered that the Murran genetic code had not been 'cured' by the power pills, and was indeed still unstable. Hospitals were overflowing with stricken Murrans, slowly dying as their own genetic structures unraveled, and many of those hoarding power pills they had hidden from the Legion came forward to donate their tiny supplies to researchers and doctors who desperately sought any means possible to stave off another potential genocide.

The thought of contacting the Legion, seen by many as the reason they were suffering in the first place, was pridefully dismissed, but Lia shook her head at this pig-headedness and swallowed one of the handful of power pills she had kept for her own family's use, and took off for earth on a fiery plume of rocket exhaust.

The Legion rushed back to Murra, hoping to prevent the planetary catastrophe they had unwittingly unleashed, to find that the majority of the population of Murra was now stricken, with the worst cases having suffered organ failure, and being kept alive only by mechanical life support. Knowing they would never have time, Brainiac 5 reconfigured Murran communications satellites to bathe the entire world in a stasis ray, slowing the rate of decline and buying the Legion precious days to formulate a more permanent solution.

It was Lyle Norg, the Invisible Kid, who found a cure. Using Durlan cells donated by Chameleon Boy, cells that were already 'meta-genetically unstable,' and yet perfectly viable, Lyle created a serum that would allow afflicted Murran DNA to adapt to its deficiencies, reshaping itself to become viable once again. With Element Lad's help, vast quantities of the new cure were synthesized, and, wearing special suits, to protect themselves from the effects of the orbital stasis rays, the Legion, along with those Murrans who remained able to function, spread among the populace administering this new cure.

Lia, going by the name Rocket Girl, was one of the few Murrans who still had metahuman powers when given the new cure, and, in an unexpected reaction, found that her metahuman powers had become permanent, making her the first natural Murran metahuman in a new generation of Murrans who did not derive their powers from the power pills.

Today, where the laboratory where the cure was discovered, there is no a park with a central plaza dominated by three statues, one of Lyle Norg, who discovered the cure, one of Chameleon Boy, whose cells the cure was derived from, and suspended on columns representing her fiery rocket exhaust, Lia Frex, Rocket Girl, the first in a new generation of Murran heroes.

(Despite their contributions to the cure, statues to Brainiac 5, Element Lad and Saturn Girl were not approved for this site, as those three Legionnaires were heavily involved in the destruction of the original power pills, and not all Murrans were quite ready to forgive their unwitting involvement in the near genocide of the Murran race!)

Alas, I keep forgetting that not everyone has the long, shameful history with the Legion that I do.

In the Silver Age Doom of the Legion story arc, Mask Man is suspected of being from Dollworld, due to his dwarfish size. Shrinking Violet and Chameleon Boy reduce themselves to doll-size, and interrogate the inhabitants of Dollworld (apparently on a door-to-door basis) in order to see if they can find any intelligence regarding the mysterious Mask Man.

Unfortunately, Mask Man is indeed hiding on Dollworld, and brutally murders both Shrinking Violet and Chameleon Boy. (It’s OK. They get better later.)

The only unusual ability Dollans appear to have is being naturally small in stature, about the size of Zrfffn imps, or, so I would imagine, about one meter tall at the upper limit.

Atoma is ½ Dollan (that is, her mother is naturally from Dollworld) and ½ Krill.

The Krill are the humanoid, but non-terran, alien species that colonized Imsk and Orzde, the two worlds of the white dwarf Irulan’s star system. Shrinking Violet is a Krill, or Imskian. So is Atoma’s father—but that is not generally known on Dollworld.

It is my conceit that an interaction between Dollan and Krill DNA leads to Atoma having the additional ability to reduce her mass independently, an ability not shared by Imskians.

ok awesome that clears it up a lot thank you!

The Janusites are a species which, as they mature, eventually split into two identical beings.

Double-Header, the Janusite member of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, was murdered by “Earth Man”, formerly Absorbancy Boy.

----- and now, the rest of the story -----

At the time of his murder, Double-Header’s mitosis had progressed to the point where he had two heads, three breasts, a 50-inch waist, and three legs.

He was also married. His wife, at a similar stage of mitosis, was Ethyl and Michal Retsun. She (they?) were pregnant with her first child, and Double-Header’s parents’ first grandchild.

She was nearly driven mad by grief at the death of Frenk and Dyvud. After her son was born, she placed the child in the care of his eight grandparents. (both Frenk / Dyvud and Ethyl / Michal have four fully separated parents: two fathers and two mothers)

Do not judge her too harshly. In her state of mind, caring for the little one was impossible for her.

She left Janus, and journeyed to Lythyl. There, she channeled her grief into a desire for revenge, and spent over three years perfecting fierce fighting skills, and exorcising all sense of mercy, pity, and compassion from her heart. She became a fearsome warrior.

Returning to the United Planets, she discovered that Earth Man had been inducted into the Legion of Super-Heroes, and was now dead.

Cheated of her revenge, she returned to Janus. The eight grandparents have reorganized themselves as single family, (the concept of privacy and personal identity being somewhat more fungible on Janus than on Earth) combining their mutual incomes, are living in a large, spreading hacienda. Little four-year-old, three-eyed Sol-Rick Retusn is about as spoiled as a Janusite grandchild can be.

Ethyl and Michal were welcomed back into the family with great empathy. She is still filled with rage and an unsatisfied lust for revenge, but channels this into her secret career as the masked Janusite vigilante, the Three-Legged Woman.

(Of course, there are many three-legged women on Janus, but no Janusite criminal wants to meet this particular three-legged woman.)

Now, for bonus points, which other Legionnaire has (at least in one incarnation) connections to the Krill?

Absolutely love the Murrans, and this is a fun take on them!

I don't usually participate in these quizzes, as my encylcopaedic knowledge of Legion history would make it unfair. But, as this is a personal challenge:

Superman and Supergirl battled two aliens who claimed to be the last of the Krill empire. (They may have been the last survivors of the Krill homeworld, or this might have been some other Krill)

They did not particularly look like Imskians, but had a more robotty vibe. They might have been wearing space-armor. They were powerful telepaths, able to mentally control Despero of Kalanor.

Imskians have never demonstrated telepathic powers.

Wow! I was actually thinking Element Lad, who was a devotee of the Krill religion in Superboy's Legion, but you've managed to come up with an even cooler additional appearance of the Krill. I bow to you, sir!

Klar Ken, maybe your hero can have a resistance to telepathic powers but no actual functioning telepathic powers of her own.

One peculiar cross-continuity consistency is that Element Lad's Krill religion was strictly pacifist.

The two "last surviving Krill" who battled Superman and Supergirl set up Despero against them because the supposedly did not understand violent conflict and aggression. They wanted to learn it. (By the end of the stories, they are fighting like cats and dogs, so I guess they were successful.)

Kalvars - The Kalvars of Kalvar are also known as the "Bird-Man Bandits". They are a species of purple skinned telepathic humanoids with birdlike wings and feet.

Raptor- In the city of Galvese, lives the masked winged woman Raptor aka Kiran. An orphan from an early age, she grew up on the streets of Galvese, which was a floating city, as most on Kalvars are. Even though the city looked bright and shiny it was far from it. Growing up on the streets Raptor was often hungry and took jobs from the local crime bosses to get credits for food.

Even though she was an orphan she had made some friends along the way. One was an middle aged gentleman and his son, who was about the same age as Kiran. His name was Falvar.

When she was 17, she witnessed her first murder.But when she got there she didn't know that it would be a murder. she knew they were there to collect from Falvar for some credits he borrowed. But Falvar didn't have the credits. But this wasn't the first time he didn't have them. As they were about to rough him up, Falvar's father came out with a celvaric rifle and began to shoot up the place. The goon's all took out their mini photon blasters and blew Falvar's father away. Now with a mess to clean up they killed Falvar and erased all traces of the shooting telepathically of the people around them.

Kiran was Shaken from the experience she wanted to quit the gang. She couldn't stand there and let them do this to people. but with this gang once your in your in for life and Kiran figured if she couldn't leave them she was going to beat them and take each one down by becoming the masked vigilante Raptor.Raptor has the same powers as all Kalvarian's of flight and telepathy. But she has honed her skills to form a psychic dagger. This fusia dagger that when stabbing her targets with it, makes them shut down instantly. She also has learned many Titian telepathic skills to harness her telepathy to defend herself against almost any psychic attack, and to be undetectable amongst other psychics.

Also training herself in Kalvarian flight combat, and various weapons suck as the bow and arrow, cross bow, and the mini photon blaster she is an expert at long range shooting. Hand to hand combat is harder for her to do, as her winds are rather large and even folded in, they can be cumbersome. They do have the strength to knock out opponents without hurting her.



her work has just begun but soon she'll be ready to take down every crime boss in Galvese city.

Thanks! I wanted to add to the pre-existing lore without contradicting anything! I didn't want to change the Murran backstory, but I did want to open up the race for possible UP membership, and allow for at least a few of them to have somehow retained or regained the ability to manifest superhuman powers. It also occured to me that we hadn't seen any Murran girls yet...

The XiLuurs of the planet Xophont are a conjoined species. The individual Xi's are smaller than a humanoid head, and vaguely resemble floating parrot-beaked fish (seen here, just above Dev-Em's shoulder), able to levitate by manipulating their own interactions with gravity, 'falling' up or down, or 'sliding' sideways in jittery sudden movements. Their intelligence is pre-sentient, at the levels of a small animal, but during their annual mating season, there is a very small percentage that their primitive minds will connect psychically, forming a whole an order of magnitude greater than the sum of their parts, and a singular consciousness and intellect roughly equivalent to that of a standard sentient humanoid. Once this happens, they never part from each other's side, and are indeed a single individual, albeit one with two physical components.

The XiLuur who has allowed others to refer to it as 'Flotsam & Jetsam,' leading to some confusion as single-bodied sentients sometimes believe that it is indeed a mated pair of individuals and not a single consciousness, has come to the Legion Academy to learn to refine it's unusual interactions with gravitational forces. Conjoined XiLuur often develop far greater skill at manipulating their own interactions with gravity to allow them to fly at angles, or even to curve in flight, skills far beyond their pre-sentient singular Xi kin, but Flotsam & Jetsam (called 'Flojo' by their classmates) can actually generate a gravitic 'tide' effect, causing all items in a spherical volume to 'fall' towards them, or away from them, depending on the nature of the 'tide.' They can cause the effect to pulse for a second, to throw things back (or forward), or maintain a 'standing wave' that continues to repel (or attact) matter around them, or even 'flatten' or 'spike' the wave, to create a two-dimensional radius effect, or even a single-target effect.

With training at the Academy, they have learned defensive and offensive uses of this unique talent, to create 'gravitic force fields' or to contain an atmospheric bubble to hold a damaged ship together and contain it's atmosphere within a ruptured hull, until such a time as the breach can be manually repaired.

Along with their classmates, Satori, the Tiger Girl, and Energy Boy, hero of Ventura, 'Flojo' hopes to be one of the great heroes of the next generation of Legionnaires!

When I read these, it makes me wish that the Silver Age Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes comics would have had a regular backup feature, "Heroes of Other Worlds".

I wrote this little fanfic some time ago regarding a speculation on Krill physiology.

https://www.legionworld.net/forums/u...hrinking+talk&Search=true#Post125170

I like how, on a world of telepaths, a bit of psychic defense training can make one almost 'invisible,' by shutting down a common sense used by one's foes.

Raptor feels very much like a different take on Batman. She doesn't have a rich family, but has, like young Bruce, had a parent figure taken from her by the street and has been reforged by that crucible to become a hero.

The New God Aquila has been locked in a centuries long struggle with her arch-nemesis, Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, her Apokaliptan counterpart.

Like all of the ‘gods’ of New Genesis, Aquila has superhuman strength, toughness and endurance, and greater than human intelligence, speed and reflexes. Her Mother Box has been integrated into her physical body, and appears as technological ‘tattoos’ across her body’s surface, granting her additional powers, such as the ability to transport herself through Boom Tubes across great distances, to alter her size from that of a conventional humanoid to a towering colossus, to adapt to hostile environmental conditions, to communicate with sentient life or even machinery, to recover from even near fatal injuries, to manipulate gravity to allow herself to fly, and to take over and control or reprogram machinery less advanced than the sentient AI of the Mother Box itself.

While the denizens of the Fourth World have sworn a pact to not interfere with the affairs of the Third World (of which the United Planets is a part), and New Genesis and Apokalips proper remain ‘locked away,’ Ophiuchus has been known to attempt subtle machinations, unleashing his ‘serpents’ (ranging from destructive war-machines, to subversive AI programs, to humanoid cultists) to wreak havoc, and allowing Aquila the opportunity to interfere in return, ‘just enough to balance the scales,’ as she rationalizes it, appearing to offer local heroes cryptic warnings, or to transport them to the source of the Serpent-Bearer’s meddlings (or arrange for them to ‘miraculously’ survive an attack by her rules-flouting nemesis).

The naming conventions for Apokolips and New Genesis were just bizarre. Orion is a constellation (as are Ophiuchus and Aquila); Izaya the Highfather was an old Hebrew prophet with a Norse appellation; Lightray was just descriptive; Darkseid was faux-German; Big Bear, Beautiful Dreamer, and Mark Moonrider were 60's hippie-names, as was Scott Free.

(I actually knew a kid whose parents named him Scott Free. By the time he was in High School, he was known as Steve. I also knew a couple who actually named their daughter Peach Cobbler. But there was a lot of peace, love, and psychotropic chemicals floating around.)

I have always been curious about what happened to the New Gods in the 31st century. But I have never liked anyone's take on the New Gods, if they were not Jack Kirby.

Yeah, I gave up on making sense of it and just went with constellations.

When you've got members of the same group named Mark Moonrider, Beautiful Dreamer and Vykin the Black, it doesn't pay to try and find a consistent thread linking them.

New Gods are kind of 'meh' for base powers, but Mother Boxes are crazygood! I ended up not giving Aquila any additional powers, just because the integrated Mother Box already kind of pushed her over the top.

I dunno. It actually kind of makes sense to me that the "New Gods" would draw upon various traditions of "Old Gods". Not really sure how the hippie names fit in there, though.

Speaking of New Gods in the Legion's time, though, I suppose this does lend a certain bit of credence to connecting Tyr to the New Gods, per Super Powers.

The Vuldarian race spent many centuries in hiding, on many worlds, attempting to salvage their dwindling bloodline by interbreeding with diverse other species. Their ancient enemy finally gone and forgotten, they have a chance to return, but found that every attempt to recombine their genetic structure, to recreate a *pure* Vuldarian seemed to end disastrously, with the ‘purebloods’ either being targeted by death-machines left behind by the enemy, or degenerating into savage supremacists, wishing to use their powers to reshape the universe in their own image, as ‘superior beings.’

Vuldarian ‘society,’ such as it is, scattered across dozens of worlds, and with each ‘Vuldarian’ being a hybrid of some other species, with different degrees of Vuldarian DNA, has split into two faction, over the last millennia. One, vanishingly small after their failures over the last centuries, still maintains that the ‘pure’ Vuldarian race is a superior one, and that it is simply ‘not yet time’ for the true Vuldarians to be reborn and reclaim their place as the rightfully dominant species of the galaxy. The larger faction believes that there is some flaw in the original Vuldarian genome, that leads to power-madness, perhaps one seeded into them by their long-dead enemy, as a final act of revenge, preventing the Vuldarians from ever truly being reborn. And so the larger faction has chosen to abandon attempts to ‘breed true’ and reform a pure Vuldarian species, remaining content to exist as a dozen or more scattered Vuldarian hybrid races, half this and half that, using the DNA of their alien parents to keep their Vuldarian traits at a manageable level. Whatever their parent race, those with any significant percentage of Vuldarian DNA tend to be stronger and tougher than their peers, and show signs of colorful Vuldarian clan markings. Those with a ‘purer’ bloodline also have the Vuldarian formshifting talent, to cause their limbs to become weapons, from sharp blades of super-dense keratin, to actual energy weapons, drawing upon the same internal energy source that fuels their great strength and recuperative ability. Using their genetic advantages, and catering to their dynamic and forceful personalities, and dogmatic senses of right and wrong, many Vuldarian hybrids end up joining the military services or law enforcement agencies of their parent species, and thrive in such active roles.

Vanguard is the most famous Vuldarian hero of the current age, a hybrid of Slyggian heritage, appearing much like his parent species, but with a darker, almost reddish-black, coloration, and the bright red, blue and gold clan tattoos of the Vuldari decorating his chitin, and the tentacles like 'hair' of the pureblood Vuldarians hanging from his Slyggian head-crest. His is thicker bodied than most Slyggians, and has the greater than human strength and resilience that even the average Vuldarian heritage, as well as the ability to transform his four forearms into an assortment of weapons, from deadly blades or crushing bludgeons, to plasma cannons or ‘needlers’ that fire thousands of paralytic spines of diamond-hard organic carbon. His weapon-morphing abilities are more advanced than most of his kind, and he can form long flexible structures, such as chains and whips, which he can use in non-offensive ways, to grapple and secure distant objects, or chemical rockets, to propel himself into the air, or through space, or into four triangular interlocking ‘shields’ of energized chitin, able to protect him from blaster fire or an explosion. He has even been seen to launch his forearms at a distant foe, either reeling them back in after the attack, or, in one case, causing them to explode like chemical missiles, a feat which left him without forearms for the many weeks it took them to regrow!


Vanguard has a no-nonsense view of his role as protector of his Slyggian people (and Vuldarian hybrids of many other races), and rarely operates outside of the Slyggan system, save to address threats to a nearby hybrid community, the innate Slyggian appreciation for discipline synergizing well with his Vuldarian love of action, with only the occasional ‘incident’ arising from his bull-headedness and tendency to ‘shoot first, ask questions… never.’

Were there ever any Vuldarians other than Guy Gardner? And did Vuldar ever exist anywhere but in the short-lived Universe-where-Guy-was-never-a-Green-Lantern?

There were some short-lived Teen Titans who were half-alien companions of the de-aged Ray (Teen Atom) Palmer, but I can't recall what their alien half was.

I always liked Salaak, just because he was so hey-you-kids-get-offa-my-lawn. It would be interesting if it was not just his personality, but a trait of his species.

He had an enemy called The Dementor, but other than that, no, and I'm pretty sure that DC strongly intended to never ever use the Vuldarians again, wanting to forget the entire affair as quickly as possible.

So, of course, I totally used them.

I suspect they, even pre nuDCU, wanted us to forget the Bloodline Parasites ever existed, too. I'm less inclined to dredge them up, 'though. Some things better left forgotten are indeed, better left forgotten.



Risk, Hot Spot, Prysm and Argent, who were all half H'san Natall. As the H'San Natall had a base on Titan, I totally use them as the source of the first colony established on Titan by the telepaths leaving Earth.



Yeah, I totally ran with that, since Salaak was the only Slyggian 'voice' I had to work with, making Slyggians generally stuffy curmudgeonly traditionalist law & order sorts.

On the hidden, unnamed world orbiting the star Fomalhaut (a world which they call, in their own language, mmmROARg) there lived a perfectly ordinary, completely normal, weird, furry bouncing thing. It enjoyed bouncing with the herd, and grazing with the herd, and howling strange, mournful songs with the herd at the two moons over high in the sky.

Then, one day, terror struck. A gang of space-pirates arrived, intent on capturing the weird furry bouncing things for sale to unscrupulous zoos catering to exotic species. For a time, the perfectly normal weird furry bouncing thing (whose name, in its own language, was mmROARck, or “It”) managed to escape capture. But by the end of the day, It, too, was caught in one of the space-pirates’ electrified nets.

Then something strange happened. It was no longer perfectly normal. Somehow, with all the stress and shock, It had activated—something—and discovered It suddenly had the power to teleport itself one full body-diameter in any direction.

Easily freeing itself from the space-pirates’ electrified net, it set about freeing the other weird, furry bouncing things. Unable to be held captive, effortlessly avoiding blasts from the space-pirates’ ray-guns, It led its companions to the space-pirates’ space-ark. Crushing the hull with their super-bouncing, and breaking it open with their gargantuan teeth and powerful jaws, the weird, furry bouncing things freed all of the captive stolen animals—earthquake-beasts, mist-beasts, mirror-beasts, maws, and many others.

Acclaimed as a hero, his people gave It a new name: Dodgeball!
(In their language, mmnROARbd.)

I proclaim Dodgeball the character find of 2013!

Meera Jehz is a member of the Ashotri tribe of the eastern islands of Preztor, who have embraced a nomadic tribal existence, free from what they consider the temptations of technology and the dehumanizing and unnatural effects of galactic civilization. Like most members of her society, she has undergone extensive ritual scarification and tattooing along the left side of her body, as the Ashotri believe that the demons of Taboo Island are bound by the power of the sun, and that, when the sun sets, for a split second, they are free to attempt to possess the inhabitants of the nearby eastern islands. By transforming their left halves into grotesque demonic appearances, they believe that by turning so that their ‘demon’ selves are facing the setting sun, they can fool the demons into passing them by.

Meera discovered both the truth and the flaws in her people’s beliefs, the hard way, when she was indeed possessed by a demon who had escaped from Taboo Island, but her strength of will proved capable of resisting the demon, and she was bound in a choker of gold, to further weaken the creature, trapping it within her scarified flesh. Now, as Firewalker, Meera serves her people as a mighty warrior, drawing upon the power of the demonic spirit trapped within her body. Her left half is now swollen and even more disfigured and monstrous than her most heavily scarified peers, the demon’s presence having warped her left arm into a mighty taloned arm, and her left eye into a burning reptilian eye capable of striking fear into the heart of any who behold it. With the superhuman strength and resilience, immunity to fire, and the ability to strike terror into those before her with her glowing green eye, as well as to recognize other demons on sight, derived from the demon Zeylakur of the Fearsome Flame, she is a great defender of her tribal people.

The year is young, razsolo, the year is young. And there are many members yet to have their say.

I don't think I am going to win any awards with this next post, however.

Punworld is a planet found neither in the United Planets, nor within the extended DC Universe generally. However, it does have intersections with other worlds throughout literature, such as Xanth, Wonderland, the Land of Rhyme and Reason (on the other side of the Phantom Tollbooth) and just about anything ever written by Roald Dahl.

Worlds, of course, generate heroes, and these heroes have gathered together in the Just Us Society of Punworld. Be warned: many of them are very, very old.

The Huge Manatee
(of whom, when people meet him, it is remarked, “Oh, The Huge Manatee”)

Sam and Janet Evening,
(noir private detectives, who may have met the Phantom Stranger)

The Blind Carpenter
(“I see,” he said, as he picked up his hammer and saw)

The Inn Spectre
(famous ghostly investigator of bed-and-breakfast crime.)

The Happy Medium
(a cheerful occultress)

Ronald Ray-Gun
(Famed right-handed space cowboy)

Sarah Palindrome
(A Zatanna-like sorceress: anything she says, which reads the same both forwards and backwards, happens. e.g. “Racecar!” or “A Toyota!” to summon transportation)

The Wandering Minstrel Eye
(Cousin of the Eye of Ekron, which projects music rather than energy-blasts)


That is more than a half-dozen. I will spare you more. For now.

“The man who would make a pun would pick a pocket” – Lewis Carrol

I'm going to regret this, but I don't get Sam and Janet Evening or Ronald Ray-Gun...

Sarah Palindrome, on the other hand, is super-clever, and I've always been a fan of the Huge Manatee. The Inn Spectre is groan-worthy, which, for a pun, is probably a 'win.'

Puns. The lowest form of humor.

Well, no, fart jokes are the lowest form of humor, but puns are right down there...

I am so sorry.

Just say them out loud.

Ronald Ray-Gun is based on the 40th president of the United States.

As the Happy Medium predicted:
Sam and Janet Evening, you may meet a stranger
You may see a stranger across a crowded room

Ah! Now I get them!

So I have this problem with magic-users in comics.
Too many of them are like Zatanna or Dr. Fate—basically, they can do anything, because they’re “magic”. As opposed to Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, whose powers are magic-based, but still somewhat defined, and sort-of limited.

I could probably do 50 posts detailing the magic-users of the Sorcerer’s World. Here is one.



Brother Power, “the Geek”, manifested on Earth in the late 1960’s. Created by the intersection of arcane and eldritch forces, he was a “doll elemental”, capable of animating rags and fabric. Educated by Peace Freaks, his understanding of the world was naive and limited. Eventually, his essence vanished back into the ether, leaving behind only a pile of old clothes.

But the doll elemental did not vanish. Knowing that he required a greater understanding of the world, and of the human race in particular, he began inhabiting the rag dolls in children’s rooms. Later, it was action figures, then department store mannequins, then statues, gargoyles, and monuments. He seldom revealed himself, preferring only to watch and listen, and wait.

As the centuries rolled by, and Earth began to reach out to the stars, the doll elemental entity did the same. Evenually, in about the mid-28th century, it came to Daxam, where a unique opportunity presented itself. Gathering scraps of Daxamite cotton, linen, wool and leather, the doll elemental constructed a new body of patchwork and rags, which, when energized by the rays of a yellow sun, would become virtually indestructible. The elemental arranged for the doll to be mailed back to Earth, and itself with it.

This time, it was in a “female” shape.

It arrived on Earth in the late 29th century. The doll girl blended in easily, as there were by now a wide variety of aliens living there. It was simply assumed that this doll girl was one more exotic alien. It eventually established a false identity of “Hope Twoberry”, obtained gainful employment, and was able to save nearly all it earned, as it had no need for food, shelter or other necessities of life.

As the animosity against extraterrestrials on Earth began to increase in the late 30th century, “Hope” set out again for the stars. This time, she found herself on the Puppet Planetoid, once a playground for giant extraterrestrial children, but now long abandoned and in disrepair. Using the funds she had raised on Earth over nearly two centuries, Hope Twoberry created the “Twoberry Foundation” for the repair and renovation of the Puppet Planetoid. As control over her powers had advanced to the point where she was able to animate the giant puppets, it quickly became a curiosity spot for interstellar tourists throughout the Galaxy.

One of the “Forbes 200,000”, Hope Twoberry now essentially owns the Puppet Planetoid outright. It is her home, her museum, her livelihood, her avocation, and essentially an extension of herself.

Hope Twoberry, alias The Doll Girl, has the ability to animate any inanimate object shaped like a living creature. Her preferred host body, made from organic Daxamite materials, is virtually indestructible, but does not possess other Daxamite abilities, such as flight, super-speed, super-strength, or heat vision, as it has no metabolism to produce those powers. Even if her preferred host were to be destroyed, she would continue to exist as a disembodied elemental force, retaining her animation powers, and capable of independent interstellar travel.

Hope has vast knowledge and experience from her observations of many alien lifeforms over several centuries. However, this knowledge is more in the nature of raw facts and observations than true understanding. Should she have emotions, they are entirely alien to the understanding of living beings. Strict pacifism is the one constant in her nature. She would allow herself to be destroyed rather than injure another, although she will defend the weak with minimal force in an extremity.

The Puppet Planetoid is home to some hundred dozen giant marionettes, most carved of some alien wood, some as much as one hundred meters tall. The Doll Girl keeps them all patched, painted, and in good repair. She has also, created a number of smaller dolls, puppets, and mannequins which assist her in this work, and these are also on display to the visiting public.

Although it is beyond her power to animate every doll or puppet on the Planetoid at once, she has shown herself capable of controlling as many as twenty at a time. Naturally, the more she animates, the less perfect her control. The Doll Girl never explains how the puppets seem to come to life. She merely displays them. Few tourists are even curious, simply recording an interesting phenomenon with their 4Dphones.

A traveling wizard from the Sorcerer’s World once visited the Puppet Planetoid, and was easily able to divine Hope Twoberry’s true nature. Although her pacifism makes her no real threat, he recognized her incredible power, and reported her existence to Blok and Mysa. Relations are cordial, and The Doll Girl maintains a studio on the Sorcerer’s World.

Ooh, Sorcerer's World! (I so agree on preferring magic-themed characters who have actual defined powers, like Sargon the Sorcerer with his Ruby of Life, compared to people who just arbitrarily do anything 'cause 'magic!')

I had an idea for a Sorcerer's Seven team, sort of the Zerox version of my Team Titan, but never really got around it it.

The short short version;

1) Lady Lake.

2) Lector Seb Khereti[/color].

3) [color:#CC0000]Su'ath Ka, the Caller Down. A member of the four-armed serpent-tailed Nahgahni race, The Caller Down has the ability to create conjuring circles, which she can use to view distant areas remotely, to transport herself and others, to call forth creatures from distant places, to bind / enspell others, or to erect defensive shields that transfer hostile forces away harmlessly. She wears an assortment of jewelry, bearing stones from many distant places, which serve as touchstones allowing her to conjure forces from those places, or whisk herself away to these places. (Her sorcerous powers superficially seem quite similar to Magik's 'stepping disks.')

4) Gildenfire. A Myaran alchemist who reveres Jan Arrah, the Last Son of Trom as 'the Ennobled One,' a messianic figure 'that will transform the universe.' (Element Lad is aware of this smallish Myaran cult, and finds it terribly embarassing.) Using an assortment of elixirs and dusts, Gildenfire can transform himself or dissolve or transform things, specializing in turning solids to liquids to gases, and not actually changing elemental compositions or physical forms. He usually has a humanoid form with Asian features, but due to his near-constant alchemical experimentation, at any given time he may have an odd skin coloration, or be hairless,or have some other alchemy-induced physical abnormality...

5) The Sapphire Suzerain. An elderly woman, in azure sleeves and skirts, billowing from beneath delicate silvery armor, the Sapphire Suzerain is the bearer of the Sapphire Star of Sintar, a blue spiky crystal affixed to a silvery staff that floats ever at her side. (Although she will lean on it when she descends to walk upon the ground, which is rarely.) Somehow connected to the Emerald Eye of Ekron, the Sapphire Star of Sintar gives her similar powers, focused on levitation, force fields, telekinesis, life-support fields, stasis fields and paralyzing / binding attacks. It can also generate blasts of azure force, but she prefers to restrain her targets, than to 'blast away' at them.

6) Harlack the Necromancer. The young Khund, all grown up and having explored the mostly abandoned spiritual beliefs of his people, tapping into the might and lore of warriors and champions long dead, to bring his people's glorious history back into the forefront of the racial consciousness, and remind them of days of glory that did not involve cybernetic enhancement and 'challenge courts.' He carries an assortment of talismans and fetishes, each scavenged from the burial site of a powerful legendary Khund champion, allowing him to call upon their spirits to scout distant places, possess his foes, or even to 'possess' himself and grant him their strength and skill.

7) Sprite. This tiny butterfly winged humanoid claims no other name, and can shape and weave glamer into fantastic illusions, or spin it 'round himself and others to render them invisible (or into the guises of other creatures entirely), and can work his magics to reduce others to his size against their will, or gift his allies with the powers of wingless flight! With effort, he seems to even be able to spin 'glamor' into items that seem very real, although the touch of cold iron can cause them to fade away.

Set great job! for not fully finished they seem pretty finished to me for most of them!

Sprite is my favorite i think!


Kalr Ken i love your "The Doll Girl". really inventive. I love the concept of a puppeteer power.

Thanks! The couple panels with Harlack and 'Sprite' in the very beginning of Jiminez's Adventure run (when they went to Sorcerer's World to pick up Glorith) really inspired me. I wanted to explore what sort of magician Harlack would grow up to be (and necromancy, to explore otherwise long-abandoned Khundian mystical/spiritual traditions, before they went all cyborg-happy, seemed an interesting fit, since necromancy is very rarely associated with good-guys or heroes).

Sprite also tapped into something rarely seen, a character with fey aspects / heritage. Vampire, werewolf, even *zombie* superheroes are more common than fey tricksters!

I also totally cheated, making my Orandan and Thanagarian concepts part of this team (covering multiple worlds with those two characters, and with Harlack), and recycling my Nahgahni stuff for Su'ath Ka.

My favorite was probaly the Thanagarian, since he's so totally different than the typical tall stoic winged 'space cop,' being a dwarf with sorcerous abilities and a larger than life outgoing personality (and no great love of heights...).

Doll Girl is a winner...I am a big fan of those characters who embody a concept/force when done properly!

I also like the development with Harlack...I think he has heaps of potential as a character, and I'm glad he popped up a couple of times in Sorceror's World scenes which shows he hasn't been forgotten about...

I'll admit to feeling a bit hypocritical about Harlack, since I kind of like the idea of him, and even him developing into something more than a background character, and yet don't feel nearly so charitably about those four Khunds that *did* become Legionnaires, however briefly...

Ventura, the Gambler's World, is frequently beset by super-powered mercenaries attempting to plunder its vast wealth. Standing between them and success is Vigentador, hero of Ventura.

Nearly all super-powered beings rely upon breaking the laws of physics, or altering physical constants, in order to express their abilities.

Legion flight rings, and nearly every flying super-character, break the Law of Conservation of Momentum.

Colossal Boy regularly breaks the Law of Conservation of Mass.

The Emerald Eye breaks the Law of Conservation of Energy.

Polar Boy's powers violate the Law of Entropy.

Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad continually violate all kinds of laws of electromagnetism.

Vigentador's power is to strictly enforce all the laws of physics.

Directed flight, even based on "anti-gravity", will not work in his presence.

Colossal Boy, if able to increase in size, would quickly become a gossamer mist.

Most super-strength would be greatly reduced. Certainly no one could move a planet.

"Bracing", an ability more assumed than expressly articulated, is impossible. If one is hit with a fast-moving projectile, one falls down, or is catapulted through the air. The kinetic energy has to go somewhere.

Naturally, in our own world, Vigentador would appear utterly powerless. Our laws of physics perfectly enforce themselves. But in the world of the United Planets, he is extremely powerful, able to negate or attenuate nearly any super-villain�s powers. Or super-hero, for that matter.

I realize Vigentador is superficially similar to Neutrax. However, Vigentador is only able to neutralize specific attributes of another individual;s abilities. Timber Wolf would still be very strong, just not stronger than ten men. Karate Kid would retain many of his abilitiesm but would be unable to, say, disable a force field by attacking its weak spot.

The Avenging Might of Orando: Six brave champions who pledged to avenge the honor of Orando after the Legion of Supervillains took over their planet some time ago. As it turns out, the Legion of Superheroes dealt with the LSV before the Orandan team ever had a chance to make their first assault, but the Avenging Might vowed to remain together to fight further evil incursions anyway. Though some of them could make feasible Legionnaires and they would never refuse a request for aid, they are motivated primarily to protect Orando specifically and none of them have ever even been off planet before.

The Iron Knight: The blacksmith and armorer Antonus has skills unparalleled throughout all of Orando. His armor and weapons are always of superb quality, and he is in high demand for those who can afford his services. He had been working for years on the armour which would be his masterpiece, and had prepared to present this to King Voxv upon the next anniversary of the king's coronation. Unfortunately the king died before this could happen, and the armor remained unfinished. When the LSV took over Orando, Antonus decided to use the armor himself to fight them...by the time he finished it though, the LSV had already been defeated.

Antonus decided to become a hero anyway, using the name Iron Knight to protect his family from enemy reprisals. The Iron Knight's armor and weapons are all almost completely resistant to sorcery, something that comes in handy on a world like Orando. The armor is much lighter and more manoeuvrable than its clunky appearance would suggest, yet extremely impervious to damage. He carries and is quite proficient at using a sword, morningstar and dagger of his own design.

Early in his career, the Iron Knight defeated and tamed a clockwork dragon. He has named this his War Machine, and often rides this ferocious fire-breathing creature into battle, a lance at his side.

The Green Brute: The Green Brute is the 31st century's representative of the Green. Nothing is known of its host prior to the time he was claimed by the Green, only that he is now an altruistic though simple-minded brute composed of vegetable matter. He stands 8 feet high and has enormous strength and regenerative capabilities as long as he is in an environment conducive to healthy plant life. The Brute can also control plant life in his vicinity, but he doesn't really possess the intellect to use this ability effectively and it only really comes to the fore when he is enraged and the plants around him go wild in sympathy.

The King of Small Things and Janvandin the Faerie Princess: Over a century ago the King of Small Things was actually the King of Orando. Greedy and corrupted by power, he captured the Faerie Queen Tinaia and promised to release her if she used her magicks to make him the undisputed ruler of all those below him for eternity. Tinaia agreed, but in casting her spell she also reduced him in size until he was smaller than even the faerie folk. The only creatures 'below' him any more were insects. He begged his son for help, but his son saw only an opportunity for himself to take the throne. He had his miniaturised father taken out somewhere to the middle of a forest and then claimed that the king had been slain by enemies.

The king was bitter for many years, but he eventually realised that he had brought all this upon himself and he resolved to change his ways. Using the insects that were now his faithful servants, he located Tinaia again and this time asked her for forgiveness and for a place in her kingdom. Realising that he'd learned his lesson, she agreed. The King of Small Things eventually fell in love with the queen's daughter Janvandin, and when Janvandin wanted to explore the world beyond her tiny kingdom, he promised Tinaia that he would accompany her and ensure her safety.

The two joined the Avenging Might only because of Janvandin's love of adventure. With her natural winged flight, her knowledge of magic and her upbeat positivity, she's a welcome addition to her more stoic teammates.

The King of Small Things has never told anyone else outside of the faeries his true background, because he feels that he is no longer the person he once was. His control of insect life does come in handy, but his heart isn't really in the team and he occasionally suffers from bouts of underconfidence.

Stormchild: Another mysterious member of the team; the Stormchild appears to be a blonde prepubescent boy. He is enormously intelligent however, and can control the weather for miles around. He can accomplish both terrible destruction and far more precise effects with his abilities, and is easily the team member with the most versatile range of ability. The Stormchild has hinted that he is actually a young weather god, but he bears no similarity to any pantheon in Orandan history. As he first appeared on the planet when the LSV transported it out of United Planets space, the King of Small Things suspects that he may actually be from somewhere else in interdimensional space, now stuck on Orando until his people find him and bring him home.

Shieldmaiden: The woman once called Stevania lived centuries ago, and most unusually for an Orandan woman she trained exhaustively in many armed and unarmed fighting disciplines until she was one of the planet's best fighters. She had a reputation for being brutal in combat, slaying her enemies without remorse.

One day Johzemo the evil wizard hypnotised Stevania into seeing her own villagers as invading barbarians. She slaughtered her entire family and most of the village before a sorcerous ally named Nicofurios finally managed to overcome the hypnosis. When Stevania saw what she had done, she was aghast. Together with Nicofurios she hunted down Johzemo. Haunted by memories of what she'd done though, she couldn't bring herself to take another life, even that of an unrepentant villain. Johzemo was killed instead by Nicofurios, but not before the evil wizard had dealt Stevania a fatal blow.

As she was dying, Stevania begged Nicofurios to help her find a way to make amends. He suspended her in a magic crystal, and promised that she would have a chance to make amends for every one of the villagers' lives she took. Now, in Orando's time of need, she emerges from the crystal to fight evil as the legendary Shieldmaiden. Whenever she suffers a fatal injury, she is once more suspended in the magical crystal, until such time as another evil calls her out. This will happen 217 more times, until she has had a lifetime to redeem herself for every single villager she killed that day. Shieldmaiden refuses to kill under any circumstances now, and will not use any weapon more lethal than her enchanted indestructible shield.

The King of Small Things is just amazing. Such a great story, and so perfect for a Pym-analogue. The fey nature of the blessing / curse was totally fair folk. Very cool!

Shieldmaiden intrigues me as well. I like the Arthurian feel of her sleeping in the crystal until called forth once again in a time of great need, tying Steve's time in the ice to Arther waiting in Avalon.

I also tapped the Arthurian well with Lady Lake, but this was both subtler and cooler.

I was thinking about Orandan heroes the other day, and how, it mades sense that Projectra's honor guard most likely received training from Val, for all the good it would have done them against people like Titania or Sun Emperor...

If some were far from the castle during the time of the attack, perhaps on some diplomatic mission halfway across the planet, they might have survived and gone into hiding, intending to build up some sort of underground resistance, only for the Legion to show up and deal with it before they could do more than start rallying and planning a counter-offensive / guerilla war.

Certainly the old fogeys in Projectra's circle of advisors (the Orakills?) survived just fine, as they were shown back in power afterwards (when they gifted Projectra with her enhanced powers). One wonders if they went underground (aided by their own illusion magic or hypothetical underground snake-people allies? :)), surrendered meekly (which would have been required with kill-happy folks like Sun Emperor, Silver Slasher and Lightning Lord around) or, *gasp* collaborated with the LSV!

******

Vigentador is clever. I like the idea of someone who can change the laws of physics. He's kind of a Scarlet Witch in reverse. She makes crazy improbable things happen. He doesn't truck with that nonsense. People shouldn't be able to pick up buildings or fly around like that. You get down here right now young man and walk like the rest of us!

i love this idea!

And Set you are totally right. the reverse Scarlett Witch!

also great use of Gambler's world. That's one that i think we definitely don't see a whole lot of.

i love this team! and the name is totally one that would be formed by a resistance. i actually imagine that that is how they got that name. they took it from the resistance to honor their work to help free Orando.

The Iron Knight

Early in his career, the Iron Knight defeated and tamed a clockwork dragon. He has named this his War Machine, and often rides this ferocious fire-breathing creature into battle, a lance at his side.

this idea is awesome and hilarious. a clockwork dragon! it sounds very steam punkish.


The Green Brute:The Green Brute is the 31st century's representative of the Green.

loving the connection to the current storyline and its cool to have this idea being represented on another planet besides Earth. it totally makes sense that it exist through out the universe!

I also like that he's not just another Swamp Thing. but his own character.
The King of Small Things and Janvandin the Faerie Princess:

awesome job!
but i would love to hear more about Janvandin the Faerie
Princess.

Stormchild:

which god is he supposed to be?

i like that a god from another world is on their planet. that something that isn't seen to much.

Shieldmaiden

i agree with Set, great Arthurian influence.
I see a bit of Xena in there as well, a warrior queen out to make amends for the wrongs she's done.

Great job!

razsolo:

If there is any world with a plethora of heroes, it would be the magical, chivalry-bound world of Orando.

Of course, you know the Avenging Might had several other members over the years: the resurrected paladin known only as The Queen's Colors; The Black Archers and Magpie; Bloodwitch, her brother Ydragyros and her late husband the Crimson Wraith[b]; and even [b]the Living Rock and [b]Arachne[b].

As far as Vigentador goes,I usually have an idea of what my characters look like (despite my complete lack of artistic ability) but with this one, I had only the idea of his powers.

However, seeing him described as a "reversed Scarlet Witch" has inspired me: yes, his costume is identical to the Scarlet Witch: pink body suit, scarlet bustier, flowing cape, the whole thing.

I hear ya. I often have very detailed mental images of these characters, and have to try and 'paint them with words,' since I can't draw a stick figure to save my life.



And now I picture him as Dr. Franken Furter, but in dark red instead of black, and speaking like the cartoon version of Starfinger!

Transilvane is a small artificial planet created by Dabny Donovan of NASA, and inhabited by a several miniature alien races resembling classic movie monsters. When last seen, it resided in a secret underground location beneath the city of Metropolis.

(It first appeared in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #142 during the Kirby run)


The various races of Transilvane fought among themselves for centuries.

In consideration for their assistance in the Great War of the 28th century, Transilvane was transported to the Solar asteroid belt, and established in a stable orbit.

In the 31st century, tensions were mounting again on Transilvane. Due to their wartime experience, their leaders were much more capable of waging war—and much more aware of the potential for destruction. One group of scientists and politicians, representing all seven races of Transilvane, created the Ambassador Project. The idea was to design and build a single, powerful individual who would be able to represent all eight races of Transilvane, and serve as an ambassador between them all, as well a serving as a symbol of unity for the general population.

Thus was born Paramount, who has the ability to transform into any of the races of Transilvane.

1. As a Frankenstein, Paramount has tremendous strength, endurance, and durability. He is also able to generate electricity, casting lightning bolts from his eyes and hands.
2. As a Vampire, he has all the standard vampiric powers and vulnerabilities. He possesses the power of shape-shifting into bat, wolf, cat, owl, or vaporous forms, limited telepathy, hypnosis and mind control, and enhanced strength and cunning. In this form, he is unable to endure touch of sunlight, silver, or religious medallions, and can be dispatched with a wooden stake through the heart, or an iron blade decapitating him.
3. As a Werewolf, he is immensely strong, a ferocious fighter, and invulnerable to impervious to any injury by any element except silver.
4. As a Zombie, his regeneration abilities make him perfectly unkillable.
5. As a Mummy he retains his Zombie powers, adding telekinesis. He is particularly able to animate his wrappings, and use them as tentacles.
6. As a Ghoul he has powers of levitation and intangibility.
7. As a Creature he is amphibious, and has great strength and powerful swimming abilities. Also green scales.
8. As a Grotesque in this hunchbacked, misshapen form, he has enhanced intelligence and skill, particularly regarding engineering and technology. (Think Igor)

Paramount™s mission is to bring peace to the eight realms of Transilvane.

However, sometimes peace must be enforced by the sword. As such, he carries a broadsword of solid silver, upon which is engraved the couplet:

My good sword cleaves the casques of men; my tough lance thrusteth sure
My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.

Naturally, were he to travel to the Macro-World, he would be both frightening and formidable in any form.

Cool idea Kalr Ken. i love the monster take. always thought they were misunderstood.

did this planet ever show up in the Legion or is this your own creation?

Sorry Klar Ken, missed that part of the first post.

but thank you for showing it again!

i like the Paramount idea. Reminds me of an issue of Super Friends where they faced a team of heroes from another world based on monsters where the mummy had similar powers to what you refer to.
http://superfriends.wikia.com/wiki/Justice_League_of_Another_Planet

^^Man, they need to reprint those Super Friends issues, pronto!

In my write up of Flotsam & Jetsam (the 'Skreaks'), I mentioned their Academy mates Satori, the Tiger Girl and Energy Boy, Champion of Ventura.

This then is them;

Satori Abaddonus, 'the Tiger Girl'[/color] (just above Tellus), comes from the planet of New Azarath, settled many centuries ago by many different races from a dimension that had been conquered by Trigon the Terrible. Satori, like many of the residents of her world, has the blood of extradimensional servants of Trigon generally just called 'demons' in her veins, and only by following the philosophies and teachings of one of the six schools of New Azarath can such youth learn to control (or repress, or even exorcise) those forces within themselves. Satori chose a controversial school that instead embraces those forces, considered by many to be a curse, destructive and chaotic and evil by nature, learning instead of restraint and meditation, to 'ride the wave' and to learn to channel her violent urges and powerful passions into constructive uses, rather than spend her life fighting what she considers her true nature.

Like many such 'fiend-bloods,' Satori has learned to communicate with and draw forth her 'soul-self,' the demonic portion of her soul, and it manifests as an energy construct similar to a great crimson tiger in shape (although the size of a horse!), and is physical enough to be able to maul foes, and yet also to leap within them to possess them, filling them with uncontrollable rage and causing them to lash out at all around them, friend or foe. She can recall her soul-self at any time, and when it is within her, she can draw upon its wrath to empower herself with the strength, speed, keen senses and toughness that one would expect of the giant tiger that her soul appears to be, although she grows increasingly feral and violent, the longer she 'rides the tiger' in this fashion.

The tiger-construct is a manifestation of not just her demonic soul-self, but also the totem patron she vision-quested for during her training, a fearsome animal native to New Azarath. Many of her peers seek only peaceful totems, rejecting and rejecting again the grim and predatory spiritual nature of their demon-tainted souls, until they have beaten down the demon within themselves so much that it can only manifest as a butterfly or a turtle. Not so Satori. She accepted the terrifying predator that appeared before her in the spirit-jungles of her inner self, choosing to embrace and master it, rather than attempt to change it into something more 'acceptable' to others.

Even when her soul-self is 'out,' Satori is a brutally efficient fighter, preferring a loose-limbed acrobatic style that keeps her constantly in motion, taking advantage of the greater-than-human stamina her hot-blooded native species enjoys to tire out her foes with a blur of kinetic activity. Her species, red-skinned but otherwise humanoid, has a higher than average body temperature and a fast metabolism, requiring her to eat prodigious quantities of foods, and, somewhat paradoxically, to dress either warmly, when she's not in motion, or strip off layers to avoid overheating, when she's in action. She finds transsuit technology, with its adaptable environmental controls, a blessing, allowing her to wear whatever she wants, and not slip into torpor from heat loss, or collapse from overheating.

**

Sharles Gluck of Ventura was a celebrity back home, as [color:#3366FF]Energy Boy ™ , with his own management and marketing team, all coordinated by his opportunistic parents. They tried and tried to cover up his occasional lapses, both in the field of crime-fighting / super-heroing, and in the media, with various deliciously scandalous indiscretions, but it almost seemed like he was *trying* to sabotage their efforts! Finally, at wits end, they agreed (not just with Sharles, but with frustrated and increasingly hostile Venturan officials) that it 'might be best' for him to take a year off and go to the Legion Academy to 'learn from the best.'

Which was pretty much exactly what he'd been hoping for when he 'screwed up' and threw some fights and arranged for the press to catch him in flagrante with a half dozen other people.

So now he's at the Academy, away from his micro-managing parents and PR teams and makeup people and government liaison, utterly enjoying his 'disgraceful exile' and surprising his teachers and fellow students with how seriously he is taking his training, making them wonder how he earned his 'party boy screwup' reputation. Sharles just smiles, not caring about his 'bad reputation,' although he is prepared to get some scandalous press, if his parents ever think that he's 'learned his lesson' and try to drag him back to Ventura!

His powers manifested at an early age, after a massive energy surge nearly killed him. He spent months in a coma, while scientists worked to drain away the energy that seemed to be constantly leaking from him, and yet inexplicably not killing him. When he finally awoke, he seemed normal, for a time, but occasionally would produce a small sphere of nucleonic force, which would quickly fade away. Researchers determined that the energy remained within him, and he would have to periodically release excess energy in this way from time to time, to bleed off any excess buildup.

As he grew, the energy discharges would happen more frequently, and the spheres of energy grew larger, from the size of a marble to several meters across, large enough to encompass several people. Generally, the smaller the globe, the more durable it was, and he learned to manipulate his 'nuclo-globe' mentally, causing one to fly around, possibly even at great speed. Once he learned that he could bond himself to one magnetically, and then cause it to levitate and carry him aloft, he spent hours out of his frantic parent's reach, exploring his new freedom, and he has developed his skill over the years to allow him to surround himself in a nuclo-globe that will carry him aloft, while protecting him from attacks. He can launch smaller nuclo-globes to strike with devastating force, or create larger globes around foes, to attempt to restrain them (although his larger globes are not as tough, and stronger than average foes might be able to break their way free!).

Combining offense, defense, mobility and other utility functions (able to 'englobe' and move things around, sustain a life-support aura around himself, or even just function as a floating light and heat source), Energy Boy's powers show great promise.

Not much info was ever given on "Tiger Girl" even after she joined the UP Militia Academy in the 5 year gap Legion. Her powers reminded me of Tigorr of the Omega Men i always thought she was from their Species possibly even a descendant of Tigorr sharing his regressor ability.

IIRC, Steve Lightle suggested that she have superhuman agility or something, making her a bit too much like Timber Wolf to be a viable candidate.

Some later version, again, IIRC, showed her shapeshifting into a big red tiger.

I kind of ignored both of those ideas, and went with a 31st century anti-Raven.



That would be a neat idea. Not much has been done with the 31st century remnants of the varius Vegan races (although Fabian suggested that a rogue Psion helped Alastor develop his meta-plague).

Of the various iterations of Omega Men, my favorite was the little Roguian (sp?) in the force field, Elu.

Arthur Dent is a native of an Earth in an alternate dimension which was destroyed in 1978 to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Although well past middle age, and with a teen-aged daughter of his own, he has somehow been youthened to age fourteen, and has found himself on 31st-century Earth-Prime.

Due to proximity to an infinite improbability generator, these sorts of things happen to Arthur all the time.

For instance, although his real name is plain Arthur Dent, due to a one-time misunderstanding with Slartibartfast, he is known everywhere in the multiverse as "Dent Arthur Dent".

Simultaneous with his appearance on Earth-Prime, he accidentally released Bizarro Superboy-Prime from the Phantom Zone.

The Legion gave him membership merely to keep an eye on him.

Known as “Arthur Improbable” to the team, his primary battle technique is to run away from trouble—which invariably leads to the ultimate success of the rest of the Legion against its foes, and somehow more trouble for Arthur.

Tiger Girl is awesome! I have been trying to think of something to do with her that doesn't fall back on the standard animalistic agility/claws package....I love the soulself idea!

Omni, sorry...thought I already replied but I forgot to post it! Stormchild = Thor....I am really tempted to follow up on where Klar Ken T5477 went and do analogues for all the Avengers now!

An Orandan Black Knight, a Competalian Crystal and a New God Sersi? That sort of thing could be funky!



Thanks! As you said, I wanted to get away from the agility / claws / turns into a big cat idea.

The hawk-headed god strolled carelessly between the lines of crystalline grave memorials spreading out to the horizon.

There was one grave he was seeking in particular.

“Zaura Koron,” he commanded, “Long have I sought one such as you. Arise!”

The tsarin crystal cracked and splintered as the young Tromite’s soul rose up in obedience to the god’s command.

“Take upon you your new body,” the god commanded. “You are now my Sekhmet, servant of Horus-Ra. Use your powers to battle the Undying One, lest his evil corrupt the Universe.”

The god vanished. Zaura Koron was left alone on Trom.

The ancient Egyptian god Horus-Ra is, of course, completely mad. As reported by Death herself, the Undying One has been long vanquished; gone for millennia. Yet still Horus-Ra pursues him, unwilling to give up his purpose, raising up beings of great power to battle against his long-dead foe in every century. Or when Horus-Ra remembers.

Sekhmet, Zaura Koron of Trom, is similar in appearance to the 2Oth-century Urania Blackwekk, “the Element Girl”, who in turn resembles a female, green-haird Metamorpho. Zaura is, however, some ten years younger in appearance than Urania in her prime. Zaura also has a golden “Eye Of Horus” embedded (cameoed) just below her collarbone.
She is able to transmute any chemical element, as well as transmute and re-shape her own physical body. She is functionally immortal, until Horus-Ra or one of the other surviving Egyptian gods wills otherwise.

Why she, in particular, was chosen by Horus-Ra is a mystery.

Having returned from the dead on a dead world, dazed and confused, with an futile, impossible mandate, she wanders the perimeter of the habitable region of Trom, gradually enlarging its boundaries, hoping that this small act will somehow satisfy Horus-Ra, who has turned his attention elsewhere…

The alien world of Fwang is an idyllic tropical paradise. The weather is uniformly warm and pleasant, there are no fierce animals or biting insects.

The inhabitants have never seen the need of building shelters or housing,, but work, play, and sleep peacefully out-of-doors. Wild fruit trees of an astounding variety and abundance provide a plentiful, delicious and diverse diet. The assorted Fwangling tribes have rich cultures celebrating all sorts of art, craft, manufacturing, storytelling, athletics, philosophy, theater, scientific investigation, merchandising, and trade. The several tribes, families, communities and nations have been at peace for millennia, favoring cooperation over competition, and appreciating the infinite diversity in infinite combination of their fellows.

There is only one problem.

There was once a second planet in orbit around Fwang’s Primary. This planet became unstable, and disintegrated. Once a year, as Fwang crosses the debris field of the doomed world, it confronts a particularly dense asteroid belt, and experiences a dense shower of meteors for several days, many of which reach the planet’s surface.

In order to combat this problem, Fwanglings have developed an unusual mutation. At puberty, the males gain the ability to transform into huge, metallic cylinders, which allow younger siblings, other children, and females to hide within them. Young men during the “Meteor Days” are dressed in bright, primary colors so that they may be easily spotted. At the same time, the female Fwanglings develop a specialized “early warning system” which allows them to sense the imminent local impact of incoming meteors, as well as the ability to fire brilliant “warning flares” into the sky. With these two cooperative mutations, Fwanglings have been able to survive the “Meteor Days” for centuries without personal injury.

Still, it takes some time for the remainder of the environment to recover from these meteor strikes. Plants are always damaged, and wild animals who do not live near the humanoid Fwangling population.

Two hundred years before the birth of Hal Jordan on Earth, the Fwangling Biff was contacted by the Guardians of the Universe, and made the Green Lantern of his sector. Once he had realized the power of the ring, he exerted tremendous will-power, gathering together the asteroid debris field, and fusing it back into a planet. He set this new world in a distant, stable orbit around Fwang itself, so that they might never again suffer from “Meteor Days”.

The results were devastating.

The Fwangling males felt purposeless, their amazing powers now worthless. Many fell into depression, assuming the inert form of metal cylinders for days. The Fwangling females were no better. They felt an emptiness, a sensory deprivation, as there were no more meteor strikes to stimulate their “early warning” sense. Frustrated and irritable, they began to fire off flares at random, sometimes at the inert metal cylinders. (Which did them no physical harm.)

Even more alarming, an essential part of the Fwangling romantic ritual had been lost. Young adults were not pairing off, and within a few years, the birth rate plunged.

Meeting with the Council of the Nations, Green Lantern Biff proposed a solution. Returning to the world he had created, he blasted it to smithereens once again. He then contacted the Guardians of the Universe.

Biff explained that he felt unworthy to use the power of the ring; that he felt incapable of foreseeing the consequences of so great a power, no matter how well-intentioned its use. He offered to return the ring and lantern to the Guardians.

One of the Guardians of the Universe spoke for all. A Green Lantern, who hesitated to use the power of the Green Lantern, was wise indeed.

They were pleased to allow him to remain within the Corps, a Green Lantern for life, even if he never took up the ring again.




FWANG in the 30th century was the homeworld of Fortress Lad.
{Secret Origins Vol 2 #46}

From Somahtur, The Colony is the only name recognized by the millions of sentient bacteria inhabiting the body of a young Somahturan man formerly named Siol Wydure. After an intense fever, which led to his brain-death, 'Siol' seemed to make a miraculous recovery, only for it to be discovered that he had indeed passed away, but that the many different species of micro-organism within his brain and nervous system had formed a bacterial hive-mind, and, in essence, become an entirely new person, indeed, an entirely new form of life, colonizing the body of their former host.

The Colony refuses to answer to the name Siol, and avoids interacting with its hosts former family (a sentiment they share, finding the notion of the disease that killed their son walking around in his body offensive and outrageous), and is, in some regards, child-like and innocent in personality, having leapt into a world with no others of it's kind, left to find a place in the univere alone. After a prolonged time of being poked and prodded in quarantined isolation, it's petition to the UP to be recognized as a sentient individual, and to no longer be locked up and treated like a specimen, was recognized, and it was treated with a special retroviral inhibitor, preventing it from infecting and 'converting' other living beings into fellow 'colonies' in the manner in which it had been created (it is pretty sure it has found a way around these limitations, but is well aware that the only way it could reproduce itself in this manner and make more colonies would be to infect and kill other sentients, a thought which it finds repulsive).

It has discovered that it can infect others temporarily, with the retroviral treatments causing it's bacteria to die out within a few generations (an hour, tops, not nearly long enough to cause any lasting harm, as it takes a day to fully colonize a human-sized target), and, so long as the infection remains, can attempt to override and 'colonize' the mind and will of it's target, influencing their moods, their behaviors, or even seizing control of their actions completely, in the case of a target with a compromised immune system, or lacking a strong sense of self!

Due to the retroviral 'governor' forbidding it from fully infecting others, and it's own odd status on Somahtur, The Colony spends as much time as possible off-world, where it uses it's unique status (as a one-person 'world,' of sorts) and unusual ability to temporarily infuence and communicate with others as both freelance diplomat, investigator and, when necessary, crime-fighter.

The Colony is not merely a single type of bacteria, but many different species, working more or less together, but sometimes having radically different ideas, and, while considered a single life-form, by the UP, is more accurately a 'League of Nations' that have, for the most part, chosen to work together to inhabit the body that serves as their own personal 'United Planets.' They have chosen to keep this aspect of their fractured many personalities to themselves, not wanting to call into question their precarious status among the other races of the UP, and they can use their unique abilities in ways that the authorities who granted them this 'free man' status might shudder to know, being able to 'lightly' infect others, merely to allow for more effective translation (or interrogation...), a feature they use regularly in mediation of disputes, by causing members of disputing factions or competing organizations to 'see each others points of view' more readily, bringing them into a subsconscious sort of rapport, many levels below a true hive mind, and pushing them towards a consensus, just as the many communities of micro-organisms within their own body have found consensus.

They can even temporarily release colonies of light and sound and chemical sensitive bacteria as a nigh-invisible mist or film, to 'record' information in an area, and then reclaim it later, to absorb information that the bacteria sensed while The Colony was nowhere in sight, allowing The Colony to secretely observe their clients and subjects, to gain a better understanding of a situation.

[The recent discussion of hive-minds inspired me!]

In the 31st century, the starship 40Hectare is so named because that is the measurement of its large interior floorspace. Despite its size, It is the headquarters of only a small group of heroes from various worlds throughout U.P. Space, some United Planets members, some not.

1. Antursus: Is a huge golden grizzly from the planet Arcus. Nine feet tall, with eight-inch claws, he is a powerhouse of physical strength, and has an equally prodigious appetite. Somewhat round-bellied and slow-witted, he is a gentle giant unless provoked; at such times he may forget his own strength.

2. The Pig Ninja: He is a dwarf porcinoid, an outcast from the Gamorrean Empire. Although he is only 1/3 the height of his friend Antursus, he is a fearsome opponent nevertheless. Favoring small, drug-tipped shurikan (throwing stars) as his weapon of choice, he is unnervingly quick and stealthy.

3. Greystorm: A serious-minded, silver-maned equinoid of the Houyhnhnm World, he is capable of generating small, local thunderstorms.

4. Tora, Warrior Tiger: From the planet Karnan in the Vegan system. (And you thought they were all extinct). Imagine a slender, black-and-gold striped Bouncing Boy, but with claws.

5. Wol Bubo: Super-intelligent owl-like alien from Ulla (aka Uwilla), one of the worlds in the Anatares system. Also has the ability to fly unaided in planetary atmospheres, or through space.

6. Captain Christopher: The owner of the 40Hectare, and master of the crew. He is a 50th-generation descendant of Vartoxx of Valeron, and wields a vast array of psionic “hyper-powers”.

7. Lagos: Hare-headed hyperactive super-speedster from the planet Leporo.

8. Quanga the Leaper: From a strange, far-off world called Ozz (not to be confused with Oz), she has the peculiar ability to split herself in two-- but the duplicate is only ¼ the size of the original.

Awesome take on the hive mind Set!

I love the use of bacteria and its hive mind. The Colony could definitely gives new meaning to germ war fare in the wrong hangs.

One-hundred and seventy-five light years from Earth, orbiting the orange giant known as Ra’s al-Tinnin, or Etanin is the giant water-world Mysticetion, It is ten times the size of Earth, and with an deep ocean nearly one thousand times the volume.
Although not technically within the “Goldilocks Zone” of its primary, the thick carbon dioxide and methane-rich atmosphere keeps the planet warm- even warmer than Earth. With the abundant miscroscopic life, the Mysticetic Sea is more like a warm bowl of soup than the Earth oceans.

There is also abundant macroscopic life, but the dominant life-form are the Scarlet Mysticeti, or, as they call themselves, the Uy’mon. Similar in appearance to scarlet Blue Whales, but with semi-tentacular arms and a dozen eyes, they are a telepathic species which have linked their minds into a vast, collective intelligence. Each fully-grown, adult Mysticet can measure up to 100 meters in length and weigh up to four kilotons. With a billion of these minds joined together, they are a massive psychic force. Unlike some other collective minds, they value the life of each individual within the collective equally, and will expend great resources to heal an injured member. They are also extremely sensitive the perceived intrusion their telepathy might cause on other, non-collective minds, and so are perceived by the remainder of the Galaxy as solitary, distant, and remote.

But there is another life-form which shares the Etanin system with the Mysticeti. They share, in fact, common ancestors. Sometime in the distant past, before the acquisition of collective consciousness, some of the ancestors of the Mysticeti left the oceans, took to the air,, and eventually colonized the vacuum of space.

Heading inward toward the sun, the creatures known as the Sutaryuu made their home within the first asteroid belt of Etanin. Contrary to the manner in which such asteroid belts are usually depicted, the belt appears only as pinpoints of light in the sky, with tens of thousands of miles separating one rock from another. But here, subsisting upon the pure light of the sun, the Sutaryuu make their home.

Unlike their Mysticeti cousins, the Sutaryuu are only mildly telepathic, capable of transmitting hazy ideas and pictures. This has built up, however, into a language of telepathic ideograms, which allow communication in the emptiness of space. Their evolution has led them rather to develop telekinetic abilities.

The Sutaryuu are also far larger than the Mysticeti, nearly a mile in length, and weighing half a megaton each. Still, from a distance, they appear to be shining crimson threads. Up close, they more resemble immense, bright red Luck Dragons. (ref. Michael Ende’s Neverending Story)

The ruler of the Sutaruu (for they have an ordered and complex society) is Lexla’Alun. His profession as King is to guard the spaceways near the 1st asteroid belt, as well as all of the Etanin system. He is able to communicate, and even command, lesser space-dwelling creatures, such as the immense Space Rocs, Spacewhales, and the somewhat smaller Starwhal (an gigantic version of which was called the “Moby Dick of Space”) as well as a wide variety of other creatures of the void, mostly unknown to humankind. He is also able to telekinetically gather the gas and dust which permeates space, from vast distances, to create space-storms and cyclones.

The pirates who have encountered Lexla’Alun have spread the word to avoid the star-ways near Etanin, and have christened him “the Spacedevil”.

You have some really richly realized ideas here, and I love how you pepper in science-y stuff like the Goldilocks zone.

I've had some similar ideas about alien or spacefaring life-forms, but none of them have been suitable for this thread. Maybe I'll find (or make!) a better venue for them...

Khundia has had an assortment of 'heroes' over the years, from the White Witch's solo fight as a Legionnaire, with the cyborg Kharlack to the equally ill-fated quartet of Firefist, Veilmist, Blood Claw and Flederweb.
Their latest team of champions includes;

Gladiatrix – Ahikar ‘the Gladiatrix’ Kallask is the only living female Khund to have battled her way through the Challenge Courts and retired on top of her game, rather than allow her title to be wrested from her in the traditional fashion. She is both admired and resented by fans of the Courts, considered by some to have ‘cheated’ her way to victory, and then ‘cheated again’ by retiring before her title could be ‘properly’ seized by a challenger, so that her statue in the Plaza of Champions is protected from defacement by force fields. As cybernetically enhanced as many of her peers, the Gladiatrix took advantage of her peers over-reliance on energy based power and weapons systems, and combined her own prodigious natural strength, mechanical engineering and an energy-dampening pulse weapon that caused all powered systems in her area to falter, so that her Challenge fights were a competition between her natural musculature and mastery of ancient bludgeoning weapons and blades (as well as chemical explosives, toxins and monofilament whips…), against the heavily encumbered cyborgs, struggling to even stand with their powered limbs little more than heavy weights at their sides, and their laser lances and plasma blades useless and non-functional. She had planned ahead, and the obvious countermeasures to her technique had already been developed and placed on the market *by her,* specially designed to not work against her energy-dampening technology! By the time new techniques were developed, she had already won, and retired, and went on to serve as an enforcer and mercenary, before joining the Khundian team.

Tecton – The three meter tall creature known only as Tecton is often regarded as a thoughtless savage beast, but was indeed a Khundian youth, before his body was burned away by molten magma, leaving behind a creature possessed only of elemental rage. Tecton exists as disembodied intelligence, little more than a pulse of electromagnetic energy, and can reside fully within a simple hunk of obsidian, barely larger than a man’s fist. He can heat the stone that he inhabits to melt stone around him into lava, and then forms that lava into a humanoid carapace that contains his burning molten fury, cracking as it strides forward, and generating bursts of molten magma from the oval lava-filled depression that is his only facial feature. He can melt ever-increasing quantities of stone around himself to both replenish his supply of lava for his ‘magma blasts,’ and to increase the size of (or repair damage to) his stony carapace, occasionally growing to heights of up to ten meters, and once even splitting and forming a half-dozen meter sized carapaces, hurling lava in all directions! An attempt to clone a new Khundian body for him only resulted in him burning it to ash, and he has abandoned any thought of reclaiming his ‘humanity,’ having embraced his new elemental existence. When not serving the needs of the team, he disembodies entirely and drifts down into the mantle of Khundia, swimming in an endless sea of magma within the planet’s core, with only special seismic signals being capable of recalling him when his services are once more required.

Kritaak the Beast-Tamer – While never competing in the Challenge Courts himself, Kritaak worked for the Courts, as did his father before him, all his life, both hunting down and acquiring rare alien beasts, and training them to fight in the Courts for the amusement of the crowd. Some beasts fought each other, others ravaged hapless rag-tag bands of slaves and still others were pitted against ranking Challengers, who would (almost always) brutally kill them to show off their own skills and bolster their own reputations. (The rare cases where a beast killed a Challenger was considered a great upset, a scandal, even, and a source of much secret amusement to the beast-tamers…) Kritaak finds his work more challenging because of his own desire to never repeat himself. Were he to show up to every situation with the same beast, people would have defenses prepared, and so he spends his off-time seeking out ever new and more exotic beasts to bring with him on missions. When he does repeat himself, it is with some of his favorite beasts, such as the winged thunder serpents of Axun-Te, able to deliver deadly jolts of static electricity with their tails, ‘grabbers’ from the water world of New Zlanit, man-sized crab-like creatures of great strength and durability that are capable of spitting a blinding neurotoxin from their scorpion like tails, or swarms of insects from Zuun that are attracted to globs of ‘honey’ that he fires at targets from a specialized gun, causing the swarm to surge forth from his backpack and attack the ‘painted’ target. When not working on acquiring or training new ‘beasts,’ Kritaak’s other interests include death-feuds with other beast-tamers (one of whom he assassinated by arranging for the man to come into possession of a rare and beautiful avian that turned out to not only be deadly venomous, but already trained to attack the next person to attempt to train it…) and attempting to find a wife, despite having already been married and divorced four times by Khundian women who violently resisted his attempts to ‘train’ them as if they were just more beasts for his collection.

Plasm – As a youth, Plasm was sickly and scrawny, very much the opposite of what a young Khund, the firstborn son of a Khund Warlord, should be. His father, tired of hearing his sickly infant son coughing in the night, snatched him up and took him to the food processing plants, where animals were rendered down to protein, and tossed the squawling babe into the vats. In his rage, and inebriation, the Warlord overbalanced and fell himself into the threshing blades, and in a grim turn of events, where his son’s flesh proved weak, his will proved to be a thing capable of defying even death. That which burbled forth from the vat took the form of the Warlord, having assimilated the genetic material, and even the memories, that had been broken down by the solvents within the vats, of the man who had been his father. Plasm proved incapable of maintaining the deception for long, but the Khundish High Command found this new creature intriguing, and under pretense of being unable to destroy it, since, technically, it *was* a Khundish Warlord (or, at least, the son of one, depending on how one looked at it), recruited the creature called Plasm to hold an unspecified rank outside of the usual military structure, using its ability to absorb and assimilate the genetic appearance, and stored memories, of those it digested to root out traitors and impersonate rebellious individuals. Despite being able to take the form of those it has absorbed, Plasm’s physical state is naturally amorphous, and seemingly lethal injuries will fade away as it simply alters its form to no longer require such things as hearts or lungs or blood or breath. A recent and more disturbing develop is that Plasm can remove small portions of itself and leave them in place, to reclaim them later, or simply replace the lost tissue at a later date. Just as Plasm can reconfigure his body, and is fond of entangling prey within many sticky tendrils exuding from its body, so too can these portions of itself sense movement in their vicinity, and shoot out tendrils to ensnare and grapple those nearby, functioning somewhat like organic land-mines.

Morag the Binder – The lovely ruddy-skinned Khundian operative known as Morag the Binder, famous for her smoldering dark eyes and a thick mane of dark purple hair, uses artificial glands to exude potent pheromones that most strongly affect Khundian males (but also, to a lesser effect, Khundian females, several types of Khundian wildlife (primarily mammals) and males of other humanoid species), allowing her to manipulate their actions. She furthers this pheromone assault with a swarm of nanotech robots that swirl about her person, and infect and take over machinery in her area (again, specialized towards seizing control of Khundian technology and cybernetics), giving her a significant advantage when dealing with the often cybernetically-enhanced Khundian dissidents she ends up facing. Unknown to her teammates, she has been genetically modified to be Khundian, and is a long-term Xanthuan sleeper agent, planted without knowledge of even the highest ranked UP security directorates.

Cyberfire – Aktun Shadrak is another of the most ‘controversial’ luminaries of the Challenge Courts, having enhanced himself with alien technology, rather than the usual Khundish cybernetics and weaponry. With a lean body, a sharp contrast to the bulky and powerful forms of most Khundish cyborgs (including Gladiatrix), Cyberfire’s pale grey-violet skin is covered with what appears to be cursive interlocking red and silver metallic tattoos, the only visible signs of the alien technology he discovered on a distant world. These tattoos can generate either a silvery force field that protects him from many attacks, or a devastating blasts of fiery plasma, and, while lacking the prodigious strength and durability of his peers, his speed and grace, combined with well-timed use of his force field, have proven to be a match for the brute strength, thick armor plating and explosive ordinance of his Challengers.

Deep beneath the crust of Xanthu lies a hidden realm called ‘Inner Space,’ in which the laws of physics grow strange and alien, as extra-dimensional forces impinge on the ‘real’ world. For security reasons, this area is cordoned off, as strange forces, and even stranger creatures, sometimes lurch forth from this forbidden zone. Every decade or so, some fools manage to sneak their way in, and while most are never seen again, some return, their lives forever altered by the surreal experiences and nonrational energies they have encountered.

Dr. Dira Skardir was not such a thrill-seeker, but an acclaimed and accredited academic, working with the full knowledge and blessing of the Xanthuan Science Directorate, measuring the edges of the zone, to ensure that it remained stable and confined to its historical boundaries. With her team of graduate students, Nasoon Marut, secretly also her romantic partner (as such relationships between teacher and student are still frowned upon, even in the cosmopolitan 31st century), his sister Nyoja Marut (one of her prize students) and fellow student, Jaime Jamir, they ran into a snag when a tectonic event caused the area of the ‘safe zone’ they were using as a base camp to collapse and fall directly into the caverns of ‘Inner Space.’ The way back collapsed behind them, they spent a nightmarish week in Inner Space before a combination of their own ingenuity, the resources of Xanthuan rescue services, and the newfound abilities they developed after exposure to ‘inverted quantum fields’ within the distorted area of spacetime earned them escape back to the relative safety of ‘normal’ Xanthu.

The Professor, a tall no-nonsense woman with prominent streaks of iron in her auburn hair, found that her mind and memory had grown strangely plastic and absorbent, drawing in information from her surroundings, and even individuals in her immediate presence, allowing her a preternatural intuitive insight into any situation she found herself exposed to. With a glance, she could decipher the workings of alien technology far outside of her own scientific fields of expertise, or ‘read’ a person’s most intimate motivations, to a degree far beyond even their own self-awareness. It was this gift, more than any other, that saw herself and her students through the many inexplicable and maddening experiences they endured before their escape, as she was able to adapt to understand even the contrary and nonsensical ‘rules’ of the various scenarios they endured. When the team was given ‘code-names’ (which most of them do not use, in any event) by the Xanthuan government, she was named Dr. Insight.

Her young lover, Nasoon, notable for his dark complexion, jet black hair and eyebrow-raising youth compared to his partner, developed an ability that began small, able to cause loose matter to form into brick like constructs that he could telekinetically assemble into walls and barricades, and while the size and weight of these bricks remained unimpressive individually, he developed the ability to form and manipulate hundreds of them at the same time, causing enormous walls to form in mere seconds, and even constructing entire buildings from loose dirt and gravel in a matter of moments. Less commonly known to the Xanthuan public is that he can telekinetically disassemble buildings and other constructions almost as easily, causing a small building to fly apart into its component materials, stacked in neat piles around where the structure once stood! Exactly how his powers work, and why they only seem to function in the case of assembling (or disassembling) structures, is unclear, and he had no great interest in architecture before the experiences in Inner Space empowered him. He has attempted to find offensive uses for his talents, striking others with tons of his artificially generated ‘building blocks,’ but finds it difficult to ‘aim’ them in this fashion, and it much easier to simply build a cell around an opponent, rather than ‘hit them’ with his animated building materials. Given the name Builder, by the Xanthuan authorities, he’s one of the few to embrace his ‘codename,’ even if the identities of the team are a matter of public record.

Nasoon’s sister, Nyoja Marut, thought by some to have been invited along on the expedition because she was the sister of the Professors boyfriend, and not for her own academic achievements, finds the whispering to be amusing. She knows exactly how good a student she was, and is quite certain that she would have ‘made the cut’ even without her brothers extracurricular advantages. The alien light of Inner Space ‘infected her’ somehow, and she emerged glowing with multi-spectral lines of radiance that coil and swirl across the dark skin she shares with her brother, and dance along the strands of her black hair like the living things she insists they are. By singing to these ‘lights,’ and making expansive gestures with her hands (sometimes going so far as to actually dance with them), she can create dazzling bursts of light, plunge an area into darkness, generate extremely life-like three-dimensional holograms that move as she directs them, even in her absence (lending some credence to her assertions that the light is somehow alive and intelligent…), or even wrap it around herself to camouflage herself from visual detection, or alter her visible appearance. She revels in her new abilities, which, in addition to giving her ‘super-powers,’ also appear to have provided her with an array of at least semi-intelligent alien ‘friends,’ who are tied to her and provide her with companionship. Indeed, she finds her ties to ‘flesh-people’ to be on the wane, as more and more of her time is spent communing through wavelengths of colored light with her radiant entourage, and she finds the concerns of material beings increasingly irrelevant, or even ‘quaint.’ Her codename, Fractal, chosen for the spinning forms her light-entities seem to assume when not otherwise active, has been all but forgotten.

The final member of the research team, Jaime Jamir, was a quieter sort than her colleagues, being more physical by nature, and enjoying as much the physical nature of the caving expedition as the scientific research, having been appointed the ‘safety expert’ and ‘guide’ of the team, having the most knowledge of the more strenuous parts of their assignment. More thickly built and physically inclined than the others in the expedition, she took some satisfaction in being more fit than the others, and where they would be panting after a descent, she would be ready for the next physical challenge. She was also, unfortunately, the only member of the team to not physically survive their trials, her body crushed in the initial collapse, and yet her spirit, bathed in the unreal and physics-defying forces of Inner Space, refusing to pass on, lingering on as an incorporeal presence that still managed to save her teammates with careful advice and the ability to scout safely into new areas. After their rescue, Jaime has grown bitter at her new state of existence, denied any of the physical activities she used to center her life around, and only able to experience sensations such as taste and touch by possessing the bodies of others. For a brief time, she had an ‘arrangement’ with Nyoja to ‘time-share’ and get to experience corporeal life in her teammates body from time to time, but after Nyoja grew tired of returning to consciousness to find herself exhausted or even injured by Jaime’s increasingly thrill-seeking behaviors, that arrangement has ended, and Jaime has grown even more resentful of her non-corporeal existence, despite assurances from Professor Skardir that she’s ‘working on a solution.’ She allows the Xanthuan people to call her ‘The Spirit,’ as she feels that it best suits her current status, no longer truly a person, but just a lingering phantom, unable to truly be part of the world she is fighting to save.

Together, as the Quantum Quartet (another name thrust upon them, that they find somewhat embarrassing), in matching maroon uniforms emblazoned with a double-Q emblem upon the breast, Professor Skardir and her former students serve as the premiere government-sanctioned superteam of Xanthu.

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Oh hey, we've got Alpha Flight and Avengers analogues! Why not a 'First Family' ripoff? Er, I mean homage...

Kritaak the Beast-Tamer is my favorite of the Khundish team. He seems like an upgraded version of Jungle King / Monster Master, and has the potential of being a deux-ex-machina type villain-- attacking Garth and Ayla with Lightning Monsters from Korbal, pitting Mon-El against a six-armed Daxamite gorillazoid, or whatever...

The Silver Age Legion used to take on space-beasts on a fairly regular basis.


A close 2nd is Gladiatrix, a kind of Khundian Luthor, smarter than the average Khund, and turning that to her advantage. I see a pink or yellow Monstress-type, with minimal visible cybernetic implants-- perhaps only a mechanical eye?

Thanks for the feedback!

Indeed, right from their first appearance, where Superboy is tasked to capture an alien 'invisible eagle' that escaped from a zoo and could be a flight hazard. While I wouldn't care to saddle Kritaak with something as silly looking as a 'mirror beast,' he'd definitely do some damage with a pair of tamed Lightning-Beasts!

Plus I didn't want to just fill up the team with a bunch of Challenge Court Cyborgs, and the idea of someone who had a very strong association with the Courts, but was himself not a participant (or a cyborg, or even super-powered!) kind of flowed from that.



I picture her as looking very much like the standard Khund Cyborg, thick limbed and barrel-torsoed and not at all 'feminine.' She's intended, without cybernetically enhanced muscles, to beat her way through the armor of her competitors, after all (after sabotaging their own cybernetic muscles!).

A slimmer version of her might use Braalian blood as a 'doping scheme' to temporarily give herself magnetic super-powers to short out her opponents equipment, and be an entirely different, non-cyborg/mechanical way of doing the same thing, but that would be a fairly different character.

I didn't have a ton to go on for Khundish culture and names (Kharlack, Gharlack, Harlack. Gosh, I'm sensing a theme...), so I may have overplayed both the Challenge Court associations and the rampant macho/misogyny of the folk (with Gladiatrix having to 'cheat' to even participate, and being resented by many of the more piggishly macho fans for doing so).

SALAMANDER: Klirt Salmendar was born into one of the wealthiest families on Tharr. The Salmendars were renowned for their philanthropy and while Klirt never wanted for anything growing up, he was also fully aware of his position of extreme privilege.

The very first time Klirt heard of the Legion of Superheroes, he knew that he wanted more than anything else to be one of them. He initially began developing his innate cold projection abilities towards this end, but when Polar Boy was rejected Klirt felt that he needed a new gimmick. He had always had a natural aptitude for gymnastics, so Klirt began pushing himself harder in physical disciplines. With the Salmendar fortune, he could afford the very best athletic and martial arts tuition that credits could buy. Still, he realised he was going to need more to impress the Legion.

That was when Klirt decided on genetic modification. He decided to pattern himself after an Earth animal, hoping that the novelty would improve his chances of being noticed by the Legion. When he discovered legends of Earth's salamanders being born of fire, it seemed a natural fit for a boy named Salmendar from a planet famous for its hellish heat. Klirt's parents at first were dead against this idea, but when they discovered Klirt was sourcing genemod experts on his own they decided to help him at least find someone reputable.

Eighteen months later, Klirt was forever marked different from any other Tharrian. His hairless body was obsidian black with bright yellow markings, and slick to the touch. His fingers and toes ended in pads capable of sticking to almost any surface. The most noticeable change was a long prehensile tail emerging from his lower back.

With the ability to climb vertical surfaces, highly enhanced agility, a prehensile tail and his natural Tharrian resistance to heat coupled with fighting skills specifically tailored for his new form, Klirt felt that the Salamander was a shoe-in for membership in the Legion of Superheroes. He left Tharr excited and optimistic.

Klirt had never been off-world before though, and he was ill-prepared for the much colder worlds of the United Planets. He found Earth's climate so uncomfortable compared to the heat of Tharr that he never even made it to his Legion tryout. Even if he gained entry to the Legion, Klirt couldn't imagine living on such a bitterly cold planet. Dejected, he returned home.

Klirt sunk into a deep depression for days when he returned home. He began to feel that he had ruined himself for a shattered dream. One fateful day not long after his return home, the cooling equipment in his home malfunctioned, some equipment overheated, and his home caught fire. Klirt used his powers to gain entry to his parents' almost inaccessible bedroom and rescued them both from the flames long before emergency rescue services ever arrived. This small victory made him realise that even if he couldn't join the Legion he could still be a hero. He embarked on a local career as the Salamander, and has become a much loved public figure on Tharr.

I really like Salamander!

I wonder if he had a transuit or new about them would he want to try out for the legion again?

His power set is something unique that we haven't seen before.

Thanks! I kind of have a thing for characters based on animals...when I used to run a roleplaying game way back when, I had a whole criminal conglomerate called the Menagerie, complete with an insect-themed subgroup called the Swarm...I had to force myself to stop making animal bad guys because they would pop up every couple of games, lol

Ha, I did the same thing for my first Villains & Vigilantes game, whipping up a team like Marvel's old 'Ani-Men,' with a big bear brusier, a sneaky cat scrapper, a wall-crawling bug who shot webs, a flying bird person with a sonic cry and a snake dude with constricting coils and venom.

Much like the Ani-Men they were patterned after, they got jobbed hard.

A shout out to the mythological Salamander is a neat concept. When I was *really* young, I used to read the Super-Friend comic book (where I first fell in love with the group that later became the Global Guardians), and they had a group of four people who ended up mystically empowered with powers of fire, earth, air and water named Salamander, Gnome, Slyph and Undine, IIRC. Unlike Icemaiden, Dr. Mist, etc. they were never seen again...

Marvel had a 'salamander' as well, in X-Men 2099, IIRC.

It's interesting how the Legion inspires some people to either try to break the rules to get in (like Storm Boy), or to artificially empower themselves to try and get in (like Night Girl and Radiation Roy, who spend his family inheritance giving himself his powers!).

The 30th century may not have been crawling with super-heroes when the Legion formed, but the cultural consciousnessseems to have been ready for that exact thing at the time, given how people responded to it, like it was a need for old-fashioned super-heroes that they never knew they had until they saw the Legion on the news.

Benn Pares is a professional thief, mercenary, spy, and informant.

Nevertheless, he abides by a strict moral code.

He will not take on assassination assignments without payment in advance, although he does kill for sport.
While extremely wealthy, he does purchase that which he can steal.
He will not lie, if telling the truth would be more deceptive.
He will tell the nothing but the truth, for a price, but never the whole truth.
If approached by competing clients (say, Lord A wishes Count B dead, and Count B wished Lord A dead) he will accept both contracts, payment in advance.

His exploits are legendary.

It happened that a lower king rebelled against his emperor, raising a substantial army against him. The emperor was not satisfied with merely winning the war: he wanted the king humiliated, to sue for peace without terms.

Benn Pares passed the guard outside the low king’s rooms, and left the following note in the queen’s hand, as she lay sleeping beside her husband:

Your Majesty,
Surely you realize what an error you have made.
The Emperor has you wholly in his power.
Please reconsider.
Sincerely, Benn Pares

The guard around the king’s room was doubled. Another night passed. The following day, the king received a small package, with this message:

Your Majesty,
Imagine my surprise when I found this bauble, which I believe belongs to you.
I am returning it herewith.
Sincerely, Benn Pares

It was his signet ring, stolen off his hand while he was asleep.

The guard was doubled again.

The following day, the king received another package, with another note:

Your Majesty,
You must really be more careful with your belongings.
I cannot imagine how this item came into the possession of your enemies.
I am returning it herewith.
Sincerely, Benn Pares

It was the kings pillow.

The guards were placed to see that the guards did not fall asleep.
Soldiers and sorcerers where seated around the royal bed as the king and queen slept.

The next day, the king received yet another package.

Your Majesty,
It is not my place to criticize, but Your Majesty seems too careless with his belongings.
Please find enclosed these personal items, no doubt accidentally forgotten on the battlefield.
Really, you would think Your Majesty would forget his head next.
Sincerely, Benn Pares

It was a carved ruby comb from the king’s hair, a lock of that hair.

The king surrendered before sundown.

It is said he has the power of teleportation, can walk through walls, read minds, turn invisible, and even stop time.
He does possess a number of devices to assist him in his professions, and may possess a number of extraordinary powers. However, the extent and variety of those powers may never be known.

Benn Pares: hero of 31st-century Qward.

Glazzonio -in the far corners of the Vegra star system, there was once a planet composed of Living sand. Once the planet was unified in mind, the planet was whole. But over the last few millenniums the planet began to change. The sand began to take shape, slowly evolving into taking humanoid form, by thousands of granules coming together. Still able to re merge with the ground and use it as a source of transportation. Having a very small and tribal society, they have yet to ever leave their world; for fear that they will ceases to exist.

During the Great Burning, that took place just ten short years ago when one of their Three Sun's went Nova and bathed the planet in its heat. Changing it from a world of Living sand to a planet of Living Glass. Miraculously the "souls"/minds of the beings were unharmed. They saw this as another form of evolution for them. Now made of harden glass, they each are capable of reflecting the light from the other two suns. The planet and the people have become living prisms.

not able to control the Light that passes through them, they all emit light on a continuous basis. Making the planet a giant shining strobe light in space and making it impossible for outsiders to ever visit their planet.

However on the tenth anniversary of the Great Burning, The planet held a big religious ceremony that lasted for seven days, with each day the people of Glazzonio, shrouded themselves from the rays of their remaining two suns. This allowed for various times of darkness to emit around the world. On the 5th night The Huntsmen came to Glazzonio. They came to capture as many of the Glazzonio's as possible. The Huntsmen are hired mercenaries who will stop at nothing to catch their pray. They were hired to capture them and enslave them into being the latest extravagant gift, a living prism.

Because of the observance of their religious celebration none of the Glazzonian's could shed their layers light trapping gowns. Giving The Huntsmen the advantage they needed as the blinding refractive light was the only thing protecting them. The pillaging and capturing of the Glazzonian's lasted for the next two days.

That is till a hero emerged on the 7th and finale day. Simply known as Prysm, she saw her people being hunted and some even slaughtered as they tried to capture her people. Unable to stand by, she tapped into a long forgotten ability of her people to tap into the ground that her people sprang from. Shifting herself through the glass as if it was just an extension of her body. She took out many of The Huntsmen using this ability to strike fast and hard. She knew that she just needed to last till the celebration was over. She tried to out last them and even stop them by crudely learning to shape the ground to her will; crushing many of their ships. Keeping them on planet.

Just as the Huntsmen were about to capture and close in on Prysm, Halurian Horn sounded the finale moments of the Great Burnings ceremony. Instantly shedding her robes Prysm blinding The Huntsmen. Gradually the light began to build around The Huntsmen, as more of the Glazzonioian's began to disrobe.

Given a hero's honor after she saved her people Prysm, took to training herself to learn new ways to use her abilities, for the next time that they are invaded. For she knows that now that people know about their existence, they will come and try and take them again.


Along with training herself how to fight and in the use of her new ability to alter the glass ground and her own body, she tries to twist herself in certain ways to reflect the light through her body in different ways to create beams of light that can burn and or short people with instead of blinding them.

Omni, I really like Prysm! I could see her fitting in really well in the Legion universe and I really like the interesting background you've come up with for her and her world. I could see the whole thing with the Huntsmen looking really good in a comic!

I like the idea that silicate sand people could be transformed into silicate glass people. Very cool. The culture shock must have been huge, as they adapted from an ever-shifting form that could drift on the wind to a hard-edged solid form.

For instance, as 'sand,' they could perhaps co-mingle their particulate bodies and sort of 'touch and taste' each others memories and personalities, but as solid entities, that level of intimacy might no longer exist between them, as their too-solid bodies can't intermingle and occupy the same space in that manner.

This is very true. Their world did change a great deal. But I kind of view them in the way of the Trommians, in the regarded that they are all about transitioning and change.

Also I imagine that there were even a few that were in mid "touch and taste" as you say creating whole new people in their glass form.

also now that they are light based they've developed an emotional spectrum based on the colors they reflect.

I also see that the glass world its self can also move at times because their were souls that were in mid transportation when the Great Burning happened.




Thanks Raz! yeah I think the Huntsmen could be really cool. I thought of even having Gimbor be one of them.

The name of the sole permanent living resident of Shanghalla is unknown. Some call him the Caretaker, or Controller X, or the Twilight Angel, but he answers to none of these names, and in the last six centuries, has not verbally communicated to any who visit the memorial asteroid.

Slightly over six hundred years ago, Earth was actively colonizing the diverse worlds and dwarf planets of its own solar system, as well as making fledgling attempts at surveying worlds far beyond. Shanghalla, an unnamed asteroid in the Ceres belt between Mars and Jupiter, was somewhat unique in that it spun in an orbit contrary to the other worlds and asteroids circling Earth’s sun, much like the dwarf planet Pluto, marking it as potentially a fragment from a distant solar system, and not ‘native’ to our own solar system. The colony ship Celestial, bound for Encedalus, fell victim to disaster, and crashed into this nameless asteroid, condemning 400 souls to never see the new home they sought to build. It was over a decade before Earth could muster the resources to send a team to the site of this tragedy, and, as returning the dead proved unfeasible, a monument was built there from the remains of the Celestial, to commemorate the 400 would-be colonists who lost their lives here. Even then, the researchers and workers sent to find the cause of the disaster, and see to the remains of the dead, spoke of an eerie presence on the asteroid, as if the spirits of the dead lingered here, and no matter their respect for their mission, they were glad to be quit of the place.

Over the next centuries, others came, some descendents to pay their respects, others natives of the now-successful colony on Encedalus, curious about those who had come before them, and died in the journey to build their new home. More memorials were created here, mostly by communities that already lived within the asteroid belt habitats, or ‘nearby’ worlds such as Mars, or the moons of Jupiter, but strange acts of sabotage were reported, accompanied by blackouts of surveillance monitors.

It was soon deduced that only some memorials were being left piles of smouldering rubble, while others lay un-defiled, and the common denominator seemed to revolve around the size and scope of the memorials. Vast and extravagant memorials were the most likely to be demolished, while humbler memorials seemed to go untouched, with the exception of memorials of any size built in one specific area. Decades passed in this fashion, and it was soon common practice to plant a holographic projector at the site of a proposed memorial, instead of paying for an entire memorial to be constructed. If the holographic portrayal remained intact a day later, it was deemed ‘acceptable’ to move on to actual construction, but if the holographic projector was a heap of molten slag, it was time to reconsider the scale (or location) of the project…

Centuries later, more advanced sensors have caught site of the mysterious ‘Twilight Angel,’ and revealed him to be a member of the Maltusian race known colloquially as ‘the Controllers.’ Unmasked, the Controller no longer operates as covertly as before, and can often be seen hovering over Shanghalla, or standing amidst its memorials, as if in reflection. He never replies to direct communications, although he has given signs of being aware of those around him, with his most common ‘reply’ to repeated attempts at communication being to teleport away. While never replying verbally, he has been known to nod disapproval at a proposed memorial, and if his nod is not accepted as a firm rejection of that proposal, will unleash considerable destructive force on the project, blasting it to rubble with his Maltusian energy manipulation powers.

Earthgov and the UP have gone round and round about what, if anything, to do about this situation, but, to date, have never quite achieved consensus to take any action, and so the Twilight Angel continues his eternal vigil free of governmental meddling. The High Seer of Naltor has been most supportive of the notion of ‘letting sleeping Controllers lie,’ and not interfering with whatever agenda the Maltusian keeps, suggesting that Maltusians do not interface with time the same way most humanoids do, and that perhaps the Controller seeks only to ensure that Shanghalla meets some predetermined destiny.

It is rumored, although there is no recorded evidence of such an event (of course many forms of high tech surveillance fail in the area of the asteroid anyway…), that Shanghalla contains some vast and cosmic weapon or energy source deep within it, something the Controllers either created, or seek to keep contained, and that, centuries ago, a space pirate brought a fleet to seize the asteroid, hoping to crack it open and take control of whatever world-shattering wonder lay ensconced within. The tale goes on to say that ’the Caretaker’ could not withstand the firepower of a dozen pirate ships, and that as missiles streaked towards Shanghalla, there was a flash of light, and hundreds of red-and-black suited foes, wearing the spaceworthy power armor of the legendary Darkstars, poured forth to protect the asteroid, and beat the attack force back. Legend has it that there where exactly four hundred of these ‘Darkstars,’ and that they emerged from the first memorial built on Shanghalla, the wreckage of the Celestial…

But that’s just a spaceman’s tale, whispered by superstitious belt colonists.

Awesome job Set!

I would have never thought to use Shanghalla the way you did. I love that its not an actual ghost but someone guarding it.

and i love that you included the whispered superstitions of belt colonist.

Thanks!

I sort of surprised myself with Shanghalla (for which I made up a history, and set it in Earth's solar system, neither of which are canon, as far as I know...), creating a 'hero' of a 'world' that didn't have any (living) inhabitants.

And who would imagine a Controller could be a sort of 'hero' or guardian angel of something?

Rana Rali was born an only child, a rare occurrence on Winath. Her parents chalked this up to Rana having a Titanian grandmother. Unusually for Winathian society they were completely unfazed by Rana's lack of a twin, completely loving and supportive of her as she grew up.

The same could not be said unfortunately for the culture of twins that Rana was born into. She was ostracised all throughout her childhood. At best she was considered slightly weird, at worst a psychological breakdown waiting to happen.

Rana inherited something else from her Titanian grandmother which helped her cope with her social isolation though; she found at an early age that she could create small psionic constructs in the form of translucent red bees. At first she could only create one, and its range was limited to within a few feet of herself. With time and practice however, she eventually learned to create an entire swarm of red bees. Having very few friends, Rana naturally found herself spending more time with her swarm. She has an odd relationship with her swarm, recognising that her bees are merely a construct of her own mind while simultaneously treating them as little imaginary friends.

By the time she reached her late teenage years Rana could send her bees several miles away from herself, either as a swarm or individually (though the more her concentration is divided amongst individuals, the more difficult it is for her to maintain focus and structural integrity). She can sense through the bees as a form of ESP, and she can use them as a kind of tracking device. By directing the swarm to physically surround a telepath she can cloud their powers, and because the swarm is visible it can also be an effective tool to blind or confuse an opponent generally by buzzing around them.

Rana can release the psionic energy bound in any of her bees either by allowing the bee to harmlessly dissipate into the ether, or by 'stinging' an opponent (a psi-blast attack which is only mildly painful individually, but increases in power with each bee used in the assault). In any case, whether the bee is dissipated passively or violently, the energy which created it returns to Rana to be recycled.

Designing a colorful costume for herself and calling herself the Red Bee, Rana had considered trying out for the Legion of Superheroes but realised she felt more of a responsibility to stay on Winath and provide a positive role model for other single births. She is constantly practicing and developing new applications for her power, and has the potential to be a truly great heroine as she gains more experience.

Wicked cool idea Raz. Red Bee shows some great talents. I like how you used something else besides a sword or psi blade and I like that she doesn't have full blown telepathy.

good work!

Hero-in-Waiting

Clara Kolorado is a young girl from an upper middle-class Earth family. Her family has operated a successful 3D-printer pattern business for nearly a century. She is also (on her mother’s side) a descendant of Superman.

Clara has no Kryptonian powers. She is, however, vulnerable to Kryptonite, and has therefore recently been given stewardship over a family heirloom.
It is a 12x12x12 inch chest of drawers, filled with 144 small lead boxes, each containing a small fragment of Red Kryptonite. About half of the boxes are labeled: “Bat-Wings 24 hrs”; “Ant-Head 24 hrs”, “Baby 24 hrs”, “Giant Brain 48 hrs”, “Duplicate 24 hrs”, “Evil Duplicate 72 hrs”, and so forth. The remainder are simply labeled ”?”.

Clara is to keep these items until such time as she might be called upon to use them.

(Note: it is possible to go on the internet and find a registry of all the descendants of William the Conquerer, past and present. They include Princess Diana and Vanessa Alice St. Claire, the great-granddaughter of Alice Liddel, the original "Alice-in-Wonderland", as well as countless others. I can imagine such a peerage might exist in the 31st century for Superman.)

Red Bee is indeed very cool, and I like the nod to the old classic character!

Great development of the power, from a single 'spy bee' at first to entire swarms, and how the bees can be unraveled to unleash a 'sting' of energy, just like how real bees die to unleash their own sting. Very cool how it all comes together!

Thanks y'all for the Red Bee love! I had thought about using the old Quality characters as inspiration for 31st century heroes, but never really thought of any after Red Bee...here is another one which springs to mind though:

It is said that Ama Fortu was blessed by the Luck Lords when she was born at the foot of the Ziggurat of Ventura. The first sign of Ama's absurdly good luck was when she was still an infant. Supervillains blew up her parents' casino on Ventura, killing everyone in the building aside from Ama herself. The child was found sleeping soundly in the rubble of the building, somehow remaining untouched by the devastation. Her nanny Tian had been off-world visiting family at the time, and as Ama had no other living relatives Tian was given custody of the child. Tian took Ama back to her homeworld of Earth and raised her in Japan as part of her own family.

Tian it turned out was a cousin of Kirau Nezumi, the criminal known as the Black Dragon. Ama Fortu grew up surrounded by criminals, the same kind of criminals who had killed her birth family. She secretly vowed to devote her life to fighting crime, and by the time she was a teenager she had become quite proficient at many forms of combat. Her first target was going to be the Black Dragon himself, but the White Crane killed him before Ama could make her move.

When she turned 14, Ama gained access to her parents' inheritance. She had to relocate to Ventura to claim it however, as per their local laws. With contacts she'd made during her time with the Nezumi family, Ama reopened a casino on Ventura and has made a reputation there as a party girl heiress. Tian Nezumi still lives with Ama, but is now fully supported by her adopted daughter's wealth and no longer has to work.

Ama Fortu has another life though. When she dons her green veiled costume, she is the mysterious Ventura-based hero known as Lady Luck. Her martial arts prowess makes her a physical threat, and on top of this she has great luck constantly...whether this is a coincidence, or whether the Luck Lords really did bless her, only they know.

Lady Luck sounds intriguing. digging the classic feel. I'd love to see her rouges gallery.

Rimbor is the unlikely home to the even unlikelier hero known as the Composite Sub.

Some years ago, a Rimborian crimelord managed to locate an alien superweapon that he determined would allow him to steal the powers of the entire Legion of Super-Heroes with a single blast, making himself into a new Composite Superman.

Unfortunately, in a comedy of errors, the Legion turned out to be gathered on Orando for the wedding of Karate Kid and Queen Projectra, with the Legion of Substitute Heroes being left in charge at Legion HQ for the duration. The crimelord did in fact manage to catch the entire group of Subs in the beam, but had the weapon knocked from his hands by a well-meaning construction worker, also from Rimbor, who was upgrading the HQ's security monitors (and, unbeknownst even to herself, had been planted in that role by the crimelord, who wanted her to start 'upgrading' the security system just in time for him to break in). This young Rimborian dupe, Fael Ko, found herself gifted with the powers of Polar Boy, Fire Lad, Stone Boy, Night Girl, Porcupine Pete, Color Kid, Infectious Lass and Chlorophyll Kid.

Having returned to Rimbor after her work visa expired, she now attempts to use her motley assemblage of powers to combat the worst excesses of the criminal element that de facto rules Rimbor, clad in an eccentric costume (which she calls an homage to the original Composite Superman) that is half Wonder Woman and half Black Canary, as the Composite Sub.

Fleshing out an old throwaway reference from much earlier in this thread;

From Naltor
Soran Tor, aka 'the Historian', was born to the *other* famous 'first family of Naltor,' the Tor Dynasty, who alternate every few generations with the somewhat more prolific Nal family for keeping the position of High Seer 'in the family.'

Soran was born pale and lifeless, his death in childbirth having been foreseen, but his mother refused to bow to prophecy and had him placed on technological life-support, and risked experimental procedures that nearly brought about her own death to spark life in her unbreathing child. His eyes opened, as red as rubies, and he coughed gently before drifting into slumber, refusing to give the wail of distress with which a newborn child typically greets the world. Born premature, he spent many months on special machines to help him breath, being fed nutrients to bring his body up to the size and strength necessary to support itself unaided. At first, he appeared blind, but his red eyes, while always sensitive to light, soon proved capable of sight, and his thin build slowly filled out, although he always remained a lean and lanky child, prone to chills and not inclined towards physical pursuits. His white hair was not abnormal on Naltor, although it was the sign of the Nal bloodline, and stood out in sharp contrast to his raven-haired Tor family, but his solid red eyes and albino skin where not so common, and as he reached maturity, it was discovered that he had been born without 'the sight,' as his family referred to their gift for precognition.

And yet he had always seemed a perceptive child, almost supernaturally so, being able to tell things about people he met, or recount the significance of locations he visited. His family, desperate to find some sign of 'Sight' in their newest son, discovered that he may not have been able to see the future, but that his psychic perceptions extended instead into the past. Upon encountering a new person, object or location, he would begin to perceive flashes of past history, with recent events proving easier to perceive, but also events of great emotional impact, such as tragedies or triumphs, 'shining through' more strongly than even recent events of a more mundane nature.

As 'the Historian,' he serves as a sort of 'psychic detective,' with investigators either calling him to crime scenes that have eluded their own investigative sciences, or bringing him evidence from events that he may be able to 'read' to gain information as to their provenance. More rarely he is even asked to use his abilities to 'read' the past of an individual, and while his own pronouncements are not considered usable evidence off of Naltor (where his veracity is unquestioned), they can still lead S.P. investigators to physical evidence that they *can* use to secure a conviction (or prove innocence).

Growing up in a culture where everyone can see glimpses of possible futures, and aware that 'the future' often proves to be mutable and 'slippery,' so that even the best precognitives sometimes 'get it wrong' or misunderstand what they are seeing, Soran derived a certain comfort from the immutable nature of the past for much of his early years. While his peers struggled to make sense of the conflicting visions they saw, attempting to impose a sense of order on a future that seemed to struggle in their hands like an eel, refusing to be caged, Soran found the past to be like a familiar book, whose words never changed, no matter how many times he went back to read them.

And then it all changed. No one else on Naltor seems aware of the changes, but he distinctly remembers the past changing. He now finds himself beset with memories of pasts that no one else recalls, and which no historical record confirms. What does it mean that the universe does not remember the Robotican invasion? Or the Fatal Five's attack on Colu? Or the Super-Companions? Or the Legionnaires Quantum Queen and Shadow Woman? He had corresponded with staff at the Time Institute, but after the death of Rond Vidar, and then the destruction of the Time Institute itself, he questions whether or not he should continue attempting to discuss these alternate pasts with others, or if the universe itself is somehow warning him to hold his tongue…

Soran Tor has also become aware of another 'freak' such as himself, a Naltorian with pale white skin and ruby-red eyes, who is also unable to perceive the future. He is aware that she has not always shared these physical characteristics, and is not a 'retrocognitive' like himself, but considers Mysa Nal a sister-soul of sorts, the only other Naltorian of this generation that he considers a peer. Mysa, for her part, has heard of Soran Tor, but knows nothing of this connection he feels to her.

^^^that is some awesome plot-seeding! It would be pretty sweet seeing a 31st century Vertigo-type title where Soran Tor is going on weird/dark adventures trying to ascertain the true nature of his universe while the Legion and pals barely have any idea he exists let alone that anything out of the ordinary is going on with their reality.

I can see him coming across Douglas Nolan in his travels at some point too!

Let's visit Kathoon! These are a few characters from my fanfic series, a link to which can be found in my signature [/shameless plug]....Set suggested I add them to the thread, so here goes:

One of the more novel animals native to Kathoon is the wolfbat. Similar in appearance and size to an Earth wolf, the wolfbat has massive leathery wings spouting from its sides. When not in use these can be folded down alongside its body, but when unfurled they grant the creature full flight. The wolfbat also has large bat-like ears, with the acute sense of hearing one would expect from an Earth bat.

It is easy to see how the mysterious metahuman known as Wolfbat got his name then. Wolfbat looks like your standard werewolf, though he has prehensile feet, large bat ears and bat wings attached to his arms. Like all natives of Kathoon, he has excellent night vision but his senses of smell and hearing are also greatly enhanced. He has a form of sonar which aids with navigation while flying. Wolfbat can lift approximately a ton, and is remarkably durable and fast-healing. His claws can shred metal, and he is almost as fast and agile as Timber Wolf.

Nobody knows his origins, not even himself. There have been many theories bandied about; that he is a metagene experiment gone wrong, an actual hyper-evolved wolfbat, even a mystical werecreature like those that were once common on Kathoon hundreds of years ago. He talks in broken Interlac, and while he will help those in need he is also very paranoid and distrusting of strangers. Wolfbat generally wants to be left alone, but he has no qualms about violence if he feels like he is being threatened either.

Crescent and Sliver are essentially a 31st century moon-themed Batman and Robin. They wear silver and white costumes with crescent-shaped gliding capes. Their costumes are composed of a remarkably lightweight body armour, and they have an array of visual filters they can switch through in their cowls to see different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum as necessary. Their cowls also have a cybernetic link to the mainframe at their base for detective work on the run. Their weapons of choice are small crescent blades hidden on their costume. These can be outfitted with various gimmicks; some are simply cutting weapons, some are blunt boomerangs, some are explosive, corrosive, contain knockout gas or psychic chaff, the list goes on...the only limits to their diversity are the limits of 31st century science, and the amount of weapons they can carry on their person.

Crescent and Sliver have a reputation for being stone cold killers, which they happily foster as it keeps criminals terrified of them. In reality, they will kill as an absolute last resort but they act to preserve life when they can - even the lives of criminals trying to kill them.

Their brand of vigilantism is sorely out of favour in a universe where the Legion of Superheroes are the heroic ideal, so they keep their identities secret and have at best a tense relationship with the Science Police of Kathoon. They portray an almost father-son relationship in costume, but it would shock the Science Police to learn that they are really brothers Adem and Birte, and that they are the sons of the planet's SP Chief Nil Miltin!

I like Crescent and Sliver, and particularly that they are siblings and not 'mentor and ward' or even father and son, and their connection to the SP chief. It kind of mixes up their 'Batman and Robin' feel to have their relationship with their 'Commisioner Gordon' be more like that of Batgirl.

I wonder how the moon(s) appear on Kathoon. The planet doesn't get direct sunlight (for whatever reason), but for a moon to have a visible crescent phase from its surface, the moon would have to be receiving enough sunlight for the natives to see the shadow of Kathoon (or perhaps the shadow of another moon?) blocking part of its surface.

That's do-able, say, if Kathoon is tide-locked, and the moon is not, but I'm sure there are other options that hurt my thinky meat just to consider...

A hero like Crescent whose 'big secret' is that he had an unseen and unknown accomplice, a 'shadow' or 'dark side' to his highly visible and flamboyant self, could make an interesting 'reverse Batman and Robin,' with one figure drawing all the attention while a shadowy assistant 'covers' him (or her) by sniping unaware foes from concealment and otherwise provides assistance and a heads-up by keeping track of the situation from a bird's eye view. Having a 'sidekick' that nobody else knows about can also be handy when you get captured and left alone in some silly silver age death trap that you could never escape unaided...

But that's less 'reverse Batman and Robin' and more 'reverse Big Daddy and Hitgirl,' I guess.

OMG. You know it never even occurred to me that there would be no phases of the moon on Kathoon?? Hahahahahaha!! Oops.

Ah well, if I recall it was one of the Earth colonised worlds anyway (plus they'd be familiar with the idea from other worlds in the UP), so I guess it could have just been something that survived in their vernacular...maybe there's even some esoteric significance to it; the invisible sun that gives Kathoon's giant moon its phases, but only those in the right mystic circles even know about it, to everyone else it's a nutty conspiracy....

Kathoon is one of the Legion worlds I think has heaps of potential, and I have heaps of ideas I want to explore with it, it's just a matter of trying to fit it organically into everything else I'm writing...

IIRC a crescent moon is not from a lunar eclipse (which would also have a crescent shape toward the end perhaps, depending on relative size of planet and moon), but is a normal "monthly" phenomenon of the moon travelling around its planet, and how it's seen from the different angles.

A month, or moonth, being defined as the time it takes to go around the planet once.

At first I thought Silver was a typo and the brothers took the names Crescent and Sliver.

Yup that's right....it is Crescent and Sliver, ie they're both named after shapes of the moon. I did say their costumes were silver and white though, maybe that's where the silver bit came from?

In hindsight I now understand why someone who wears a silver costume shouldn't be called Sliver, it's just asking for trouble, lol

No it came from looking at the tiny screen with tiny letters and checking to make sure and being wrong anyway.

Oh, it's sci-fi, we can make crap up to explain anything.

A) Kathoon's sun is a 'dark star' or brown dwarf or whatever, and puts out way more ultraviolet than visible light, and Kathoon's moon happens to be composed of / covered with some material that changes the wavelength so that Kathoon's moon ends up generating more *visible* light than it's sun.

B) Something else else, perhaps a natural phenomena, such as a magnetic belt or particulate cloud, perhaps something artificial or even magical, intercepts, redirects or blocks light (or at least *most* light from Kathoon's sun from reaching Kathoon's surface, and yet is positioned in such a way (or only blocking a certain wavelength) so that the reflected light from Kathoon's moon is not blocked.

C) Kathoon's moon glows with a faint luminescence, perhaps a mineral or chemical effect, perhaps a biological effect (it's covered with shallow seas filled with phosphorescent bacteria, or covered with bioluminescent lichens), and the shadow of Kathoon falls on it normally and casts part of it in shadow.

D) Kathooni eyes don't see certain frequencies of visible light, and so, while *they* regard their planet as a dark world (except for the light from their moon, which ends up on the frequency that they *do* see perfectly well), it's totally normally lit to visitors, who wonder what all the 'twilight honeymoon getaway' crap was about and if they can get a refund on their tickets.

E) Yet more Star Trek technobabble that escapes me.

Haunting Gothamopolis, a single young female vigilante is believed to be behind the incarceration of dozens of criminals.

As 'Tyr's Daughter,' she appeared in red body paint, with a towering Mohawk and an oversized 'gun-hand' with a plethora of primarily nonlethal options, which she used to break up the violent corp-anarchists of the New Midas Front.

As 'Lightning Lord's Daughter,' armed with wrist mounted tasers, and a magnetoaerodynamic thrust pack, she crashed down into the warehouse of a gang that had been smuggling exotic and rare creatures both on and off-world for a wealthy and decadent clientele of gourmands.

As 'Regulus' Daughter,' wearing a fire-resistant armored suit with built in flamethrowers, she burned the harvested genetic material of the dozens of people that the gene stealers had been assaulting to sell their genes off-world.

Other criminals, delivered semi-conscious and / or restrained to the SP, have reported being thrashed by 'Echo's Daughter' (with a sonic weapon built into a neck-brace), 'Grimbor's Daughter' (using a combination of chains and restraints) and 'Hunter's Daughter' (using some exotic animals apparently kept from her raid on the exotic animal smugglers, and traps).

Brainiac 5 has noted that this vigilante's modus operandi seems to be based on that of a 'hero' from the 20th century, whose birth name was once reported as 'Duela Dent' (although the recording source indicated that this was almost certainly not her real name). Given the lack of historical data on this figure, he has calculated that it is highly improbable that anyone would know enough about her to be 'copycatting' her, and has theorized that, somehow, this historical figure has found herself in the 31st century, and is continuing her previous career...

Which leaves him with three questions;
1) Who is Duela Dent?
2) How was she propelled 1000 years into her own future?
3) Where is she getting this contemporary technology?

Still, as long as she fights the good fight, he has decided to put this mystery on the back burner. The Legion has more important matters to deal with than an unlicensed vigilante cleaning up the mean streets of Gothamopolis.

Duela Dent in the 31st century = very cool!

It would be kind of funny and drive Brainy nuts if it were really just a total coincidence and this girl has never heard of Duela Dent, the Titans or any of the Batman villains in her life though too...

Thanks! She's always been a favorite, and the 21st century DCU seems 'done' with her, so she's all mine!



True. Brainy may not like to admit it, but, on rare occasion, he has been flat-out wrong!

It would be even more whacky if her 'real name' happens to be the name of a 30th/30st century villain, similar to 'Duela Dent' (who took on the identity of pretty much every Bat-Villain *but* Two-Face's Daughter!). The name on her (presumably forged) identi-card might read 'Vee Vidar' or something (although Rond insists he's never heard of her and is an only child).

^^^ cousin maybe?????



and Raz i like Wolfbat and having his own origin be a mystery is really a good idea. that can leave lots of room for potential.


can he leave Kathoon or no??

The Linsnarian known as Dynamo serves as a hero on her native world, being less than fond of leaving her homeworld. As a child, E.K.T.A. suffered a bad case of viral contamination after interfacing with a bit of supposedly 'safe' alien technology, and has developed the Linsnarian equivalent of 'germaphobia,' leading her to only interface with trusted local technology. This sort of affliction is not uncommon on Linsnar, and she excelled in Linsnarian engineering despite this disadvantage, developing a revolutionary air-breathing magnetoaerodynamic turbine that was compact and far more energy efficient than any previous design, allowing her to equip her own body with her special turbines.

Her forearms and lower legs contain her 'engines' and are capable of generating sufficient thrust to propel her through a gaseous or liquid medium quietly and at great speed, and with a command, she can cause the medium (even a fluid like water) to enter a fiery plasmic state that vastly accelerates her movement, and can also be used as a potent attack, if needed, or, more commonly, as a plasma welder or cutting torch, for industrial use.

By turning her hips, and angling her arms and legs just so, she can even cause her four independently operated turbines to generate circular momentum, so that she begins to spin at incredible speeds, generating a vortex of whatever gaseous or liquid medium she currently inhabits, like a miniature tornado. And again, with the flick of a switch, she can cause that medium to become superheated plasma, so that she is surrounded by a tornado of fire!

By firing a turbine just as her fist makes contact with a foe, she can also unleash her devastating signature move, the Plasma Punch, accompanied by a fiery explosion!

Combined with the inherent advantages to being a technological form of life, such as great resistance to environmental conditions an organic life-form could not survive, as well as a small degree of enhanced strength, intellect and durability, Dynamo serves her people well.

Dynamo sounds awesome! She has a great visual to her, and the Linsnarians are a race that would be interesting to see more exploration of...

Re: Wolfbat: thanks Omni! He has never tried to leave Kathoon so nobody knows...it might be one way to find out if his powered form comes from science or magic though!

Oro Marr, aka Shard serves as a hero on his home world of Lupra. A nearly earth-sized moon, orbiting a sullen gas giant around a distant dim star, Lupra is lit primarily by the light of it's luminescent upper atmosphere, and heated by a runaway greenhouse effect. The colonists have grown pale of skin, with large dark light-sensitive eyes in a world that has little color, due to the nature of the lighting, and Oro was a typical member of his people, almost albino-pale, with black eyes and a slight build. His brown hair, he dyes metallic red and wears in a spiky crown, often concealed by the helmet he wears as Shard.

The source of his powers is unknown, but they manifested during a solitary climb on the 'Crystal Cliff,' vast sheets of quartz that rose nearly vertically, and upon which he had intended to leave a monumental bit of (non-permanent) graffiti proclaiming his love for a certain young woman of his acquaintance. A tremor caused him to lose his grip and the ledge he was standing on to slide ten meters down the cliff-face, to lodge sixty meters above the actual ground level, with Oro dangling from his climbing ropes, stunned by impact with the cliff face during the temblor. An hour passed, his bloodied scalp dripping down onto the section of ledge that had fallen away from beneath his feet, hanging in mid-air by his harness.

He awoke groggy, and reached out for the ledge, which he believed to still be right under his feet, and the ledge rose into the air, as if answering his call. After some disorientation and experimentation, he discovered that the blood-stained crystal slab, which must have weighed a ton or more, moved according to his will, and he used it to gently lower himself to the ground, moving with deliberation, as he remained light headed from concussion and blood loss.

Over the next months, he learned that if his blood touched the veined quartz from the Crystal Cliffs, it changed in hue and composition, becoming more durable, and containing a faint coppery 'flame' within it, like a more precious stone. More importantly, he could manipulate 'blooded' stone, moving it about telekinetically, and it was almost by accident that he turned his new talents to heroic adventures, as his private practices out in the desert led to his discovery, and capture, of a ring of crystal smugglers, who were startled to find the crystals they were stealing to rise up and batter them into submission!

From his early days, riding a slab of crystal like a surfboard and battering foes with storms of fist-sized quartz stones, Shard has come a long way, now floating serenely in medieval looking armor composed of blooded crystal, and bearing a shield and sword-like shard of crystal, like some bejeweled knight.

The Legion of Stoneworld

(1) Eo of the Pumice People (Relay) A mutant, with the ability to link her mind with any other silicon-based intelligence, including some computer intelligences. Those linked to her mind quickly learn to “thought-speak” with others so linked. Her “telelithopathy” does not include psychic attacks, mental hypnosis, or mind probing—the ability to sense “unspoken” thoughts or emotions.

(2) Kzabba of the Obsidian Folk (Magisterium) A student of magic, he has transformed himself into a living philospher’s stone, able to alchemically transmute matter.

(3) Tzhoanna of the Obsidian Folk (Higgs) A mutant with the ability increase his inertial mass by absorbing mass from the Higgs field. This endows him with tremendous strength, invulnerability, and immovability. Because he alters his inertial mass independent of his gravitational mass, he is able to slow the rate at which he falls to nearly zero.

(4) Oao of the Pumice People (Sponge) She has the ability to absorb, and then re-release, any form of energy.

(5) Uu of the Pumice People (Coldstone) She is able to project cold and ice.

(6) Gzayith of the Obsidian Folk (Wall ) He has the power of projective invulnerability: the ability to grant any object or individual trans-Daxamite class invulnerability without Daxamite-class strength. For example, using his power on a nuclear weapon would cause it to not explode, as the casing would be indestructible.

Higgs and Wall both have very cool and creative applications to their powers! I like!

Love your use of science and physics in your write-ups.

Projective invulnerability is a neat power. Outside of superhero role-playing games, you don't often see people with the power to grant powers to other people (like defensive fields or Tinkerbell's classic ability to grant flight to other people).

Oh hey, I wasn't done with Heroes of Slygga yet...

Kalax-Ur (Ur being a title meaning 'Learned' or 'Scholar,' the Slyggian equivalent of 'Professor' or 'Doctor') operates as a hero as 'The Reaper' after a failed experiment in temporal mechanics led to him being stuck in a hyper-accelerated metabolic state, granting him great superhuman speed. His name has a double meaning, as he is associated with cold and ice, and, to many Slyggan cultures, the icy wastelands of their polar regions were traditionally associated with the lands of the dead, where spirits go after the death of their bodies.

He can move faster than sound, and his already impressive mind operates at computer-like speeds, but the effects on his body and metabolism is devastating, causing him to age days, weeks or even months every time he exercises his superhuman physical capabilities. His accelerated metabolism is somehow fueled by ambient heat energy, and his presence literally chills the room, as his body becomes heated by the stolen energy, leading to an increase in physical entropy, and rapid deterioration. Using his advanced intellect, and superhuman cerebral processing speed, he designed a bulky life-support suit that uses cryonics and chemical stasis techniques to place his body in a form of selective bio-stasis, allowing his mind to continue to operate and remain conscious (albeit at reduced speed)), while his body remains semi-frozen, and is spared the accelerated aging that his unique condition causes. The cryo-suit includes a cybernetically-controlled exoskeleton, allowing him to walk about, slowly, even though his body is unresponsive, so that he can continue to function, more or less, even 'though only his brain is free from stasis.

When his unique gifts are called for, a fog of coolant is expelled from the vents on his support suit, and he begins running as fast as sound itself, frozen coolant in his wake, and scythe-like blades of coolant ice trailing from the vents on his four forearms, which he has learned to use as fearsome bladed weapons to destroy the arms or equipment of those who threaten his people. Already able to run fast enough to cross the many waterways and shallow seas criss-crossing his humid and rain-soaked birth-continent, the cryo-coolant his suit trails, combined with his natural heat-absorbing properties, is sufficient to freeze water in his passage, so that he leaves behind icy bridges, which he has learned to shape into barriers, or even use as weapons, as thousands of icy teardrops of frozen rain are accelerated to supersonic velocity in his wake, a potentially devastating accompaniment to his arrival at the scene of a hostile incursion.

When the action is over, he re-activates his cryo-suit and returns his body to stasis, his thought controlled armor walking him slowly to the nearest conveyance to return home, since the expenditure of energy necessary to run home under his own power could take months off of his life...

It is rumored (and those closest to him know it to be true) that he long ago discovered a cure for his condition, but refuses to take it, as slowing his metabolism down permanently might grant him decades of life, but would also slow his mind down to 'normal' speeds, and he is too stubbornly proud of his hyper-accelerated genius to ever go back to being 'merely' the smartest man on Slygga...

Super speed and ice powers are a new combination which fit surprisingly well together, I like it. The thousands of hyper-accelerated teardrops would make for an awesome visual!

From Thanagar, we have Lightwing: Vanak Varzee grew up as one of millions of impoverished slaves on Thanagar's Downside. Born into generations of poverty and servitude, Vanak longed for a better life for himself and his people every time he looked up to see the gleaming spires of the Thanagarians who profited from the Downsiders' toil below.

Vanak's ambition was palpable. He dedicated his life to studying guerrilla tactics, military and political history, martial arts and the use of various weapons...anything which would help him liberate his people. He created the identity of Lightwing both to protect his loved ones from reprisal and to forge an icon for his people to rally around. Amazingly, and purely on the strength of his charisma, he managed to build a small but loyal group around him without ever having made a strike against the Thanagarians above. He called his supporters the Shamebirds, the rationale being that they were borne of Thanagar's shame and that they would bring that shame to the attention of the galaxy. Following Lightwing's lead, the Shamebirds also donned distinctive disguises to announce their allegiance while protecting their individual identities. They vowed to remain Shamebirds until their world no longer had a culture of bigotry and oppression to be ashamed of.

Using the resources of his new followers, Lightwing created a suit which deliberately makes him look like one of Thanagar's legendary hawk-police. Instead of Nth metal though, his wings and armaments are all hard light constructs. The Shamebirds wear black market anti-gravity belts. Together they have begun a very public campaign to bring down the corrupt elements of Thnagarian society, liberate the Downsiders from millennia of oppression and bare their people's plight to a naive United Planets. The Thanagarians above see Lightwing and his Shamebirds as a criminal threat, but to more and more people living Downside they are great heroes.

Ooh, a Thanagarian hero. I really don't know a whole lot about the state of Thanagar even in the 20th century, let alone have much of a handle what is like 1000 years later. (Then again, depending on the origin story Hawkman has this week, they might have had roughly the same technology level since the days of Ancient Egypt...)

I like the hard-light construct wings. Reminds me of the visual for Songbird, of the Thunderbolts.

Running with razsolo's Thanagarian inspiration;

Thanagarians have always been a proud and passionate people, capable of love affairs that can last a hundred lifetimes, and yet also quick to take violent offense, resulting in simmering blood feuds that can also last many generations.

Ytarra Lon was the daughter of two such overproud parents, each from a high-born family, and falling into a bitter feud soon after her birth, one that ultimately led to their deaths at each others hands, as their lover's quarrel resulted in the crash of the ship they were piloting. Her extended families quarreled over who was rightful custodian of the child, and a cold war that had been temporarily put aside upon the marriage of two members of these star-crossed houses turned hot again.

'Rescued' by one house or the other at various times in her childhood, she found her release from the endless strife and virtual imprisonment by one or the other 'family' that she increasingly resented when an attack resulted in such confusion that she was able to escape and go into hiding, allowing her latest 'rescuers' to think that they had killed her during their assault (or that her 'captors' had killed her to prevent her from being taken again).

She lived in hiding for months, as her powerful families expended great resources seeking her out (and attacking each other, both in the court of public opinion, each blaming the other for the murder of the innocent child at the center of this latest excuse for bloodshed, and through various violent actions). Huddled in a ruin, she prayed only to be invisible, for the endless running and hiding to not be the only life for her, and her prayers were answered.

She awoke bathed in a violet light, with a small item pressed into her hand. A search team, mercenaries hired by which family, she did not know or care, swept through the ruin, and their leader stood directly in front of her, shining his helmet-lights down upon her, huddled in the sand, and spoke into his comm-device. "She's not here. Sweep the last quadrant and let's get out of here."

She waited until she heard their transport fly away, her hand cramped with the force with which she clutched the small object, and yet when she opened her hand, there was nothing there, only the indentation of a small object in her palm, and a slight sensation of weight. Exploring, she discovered that she held a ring of curious shape, one tingly to the touch, and yet utterly invisible to her sight. She slipped it onto her finger impulsively, and it shimmered into a view, a black and violet ring that seemed strangely translucent. Her clothing shimmered as well, and was replaced by a similar costume, black and violet, with an odd emblem on the chest, similar to the one on the face of the ring.

And so young Ytarra became Thanagar's representative among the elusive Ultraviolet Lantern Corps, a group of invisible agents who oppose strong emotion of any sort, seeking to quell destructive passions, such as those of the intemperate Thanagarians, and so save worlds from being torn apart, using their ultraviolet energies, invisible to most humanoids, to affect the societies under their protection from the shadow, unseen and unrecorded by history.

Ytarra has set to work, first stopping the fighting between her own families, by arranging for her 'death,' and pinning it on the most aggressive members of each family, causing both to lose face equally and publically, rendering them incapable of, as was their tradition, to blame everything on the opposite party. By arranging for similar aggressive actions among her family to fail, thanks to her meddling, and the effective use of her invisible force constructs, while working behind the scenes to greatly accelerate the works of the few members of her family prone to reasonable and temperate behaviors, she began a program of rewarding the moderates and punishing the most confrontational among her hot-blooded people.

Soon she was doing the same with other prominent families involved in violent feuds, causing the most belligerent of them to suffer humiliating (and status-affecting) reversals of fortune, by operating behind the scenes, while defending the works of the more moderate movers and shakers in Thanagarian society.

Love this character Set! there's so many way you could take this character. I like how his powers are connected to the Crystal and that its essentially his life essence that gave him power.

Thanks!

I didn't really know anything about Lupra, so made up details based on Color Kid's pallor and totally black eyes, suggesting that Lupra was dimly lit and a bit monochromatic, which would make his ability to generate dazzling colors seem like a crazy spectacular power back home, and, out in the more brightly lit universe, not so much.

As sometimes happens, the way my brain works, it turned into not just an exercise in building a super-power, and building a characterization, but also in building an entire world to go around it!

Shard ends up being one of those local heroes that can't really leave home and join the Legion, as his powers are tied to that special blend of quartzite crystal that is common on Lupra, and may not exist loose in the greater galaxy.

Set another awesome character. Ultra Violet Lantern is a really unique use of the light spectrum.

great way to use invisibility.

I also liked how you did a Romeo and Juliet take on this world. Honor and reputation are everything but yet that's what destroys their lives.
Nice touch!!!

Thanks! I hadn't meant for there to be a Romeo & Juliet riff, but as it wrote itself, I bowed to the inevitable!

I was thinking of how the green and yellow power rings were sort of antithetical, as were the red and indigo rings, and maybe even the violet and orange rings, but the parallels weren't precise, and I really wanted to make up a ring that was very much the opposite of a 'Love Lantern,' and, at the same time, was sort of an anti-Rage and anti-Fear lantern as well, a foe of all strong emotion, that operated beyond the visible frequencies and was way more subtle and behind-the-scenes.

Sort of a 'Shadow Lantern,' as it were, only not as obviously darkness or shadow-themed.

I think a shadow lantern would be cool to see some day but i think. maybe that can be your next creation.

I keep promising myself that I'm going to stop tapping that Green Lantern well, and with so many great alien races having been introduced as GLs, it's so hard!

A thousand years can greatly change a race, and few who knew them in the late 20th century would recognize the Gordanians of the Caretaker caste of Karna. A generation of Gordanians who hatched from eggs bathed in the light of enlightenment shining from X’Hal Reborn, the Caretakers of Karna have taken it upon themselves to undo the ecological devastation they wrought upon the world of Karna, taking up centuries worth of trophies made from the hides, fangs and claws of the various species they had hunted into extinction (including the native sentient race), and using advanced cloning technology bartered from Psions to begin repopulating Karna with creatures born from the fragments of DNA they had saved as ‘hunting trophies’ for so many centuries.

Trozak is a prodigy even among the philosopher-priests that lead the Caretakers, wandering the world of Karna, protected by a combination of the superstitious dread the native Karnans regard the Caretakers, and advanced technology, to spread his unique gift, a psychic talent that allows him to reawaken genetic memories in those he touches. The primitive tribes of Karnans, currently only five generations old, who submit to his teachings relive the pasts of the many millennia-dead Karnans from whom their DNA was cloned, allowing them a chance to recapture and reclaim their original culture and customs, which otherwise would have been lost.

His unique talent proves useful defensively as well, as he can incapacitate a hostile foe by forcing them to experience the entire lives of their ancestors, at a greatly accelerated rate, providing them with incredible access to their genetic/family history, but at the cost of rendering them helpless in the present.

The world of New Rann is settled by a combination of Kranaltine 'Throneworlders,' Rannians and Tamaraneans, having fused into a single harmonious culture over the last ten centuries.

Their pre-eminent super-team, the Strangers, consists of;

Zee Strange, the team leader, claims descent from Adam Strange, a distinction she shares with 60% of the planet's Rannian population, making it something of an in-joke among her people. She became quantum entangled with a zeta beam transport as a child, and retains the ability to summon the zeta energies within herself, causing her body to fly apart into zeta particles and travel across thousands of light years in seconds. She has developed the ability to take others with her, and responds to any force by 'zeta-ing' in her 'Strange Men,' a team of government-sponsored elite troops that have the same sorts of energy and impact resistant life supporting body armor, flight packs and plasma pistols that she carries. After teleporting in her assault team, she enters combat by selecting opponents and zeta-ing them to the nearest moon, to be dealt with later. Vee is a tall and strongly built woman, bald and with large dark luminous eyes that have been modified to see within the entire electromagnetic spectrum. It is widely suspected that her real name isn't 'Vee Strange,' but whatever her true birth name, it remains classified by the government authority that supports the Strangers. Perhaps as a result of being able to fly apart into zeta particles at a moment's notice, re-appearing miles, or light-years, away, Vee tends to be fearless in combat, moving around with confident purpose, rarely taking time to speak, other than to direct her 'Strange Men,' and leaving tactical command to Starwoman, who is rumored by some to be more than just her teammate.

Mister Grey, a Rannian who formerly functioned as a villain, until recruited to the team, was afflicted by the sterilizing radiation of an ancient Rannian weapon, and now can radiate a chilling light-absorbing energy that weakens living creatures, causing them to grow fatigued, and appear to visibly age. Under the full force of this effect, usually inflicted by his direct touch, people die of exhaustion within moments and plants crumble to dust. The same effect has left him visibly withered, yet unnaturally durable and with a wiry strength that surprises those who judge him by his frail appearance. Thanks to special treatments, he experiences moments of life-like vitality, and even learned to direct his life-negating energies in beneficial ways, to selectively kill tumors or hinder the growth and spread of harmful bacteria or even place someone in suspended animation to stave off death by blood loss or poisoning. While Mister Grey appears to be a decrepit old man, when not immersed in his vita-ray tank and undergoing treatment, he is actually a teenager, and may sometimes take out his frustrations regarding his condition with bursts of unnecessary violence.

Vortex comes from a line of 'windtalkers,' Rannian nomads generally regarded as superstitious cranks and throwbacks, but backs up her eccentric mannerisms and often made-up-on-the-spot 'traditions' with the ability to control whirling vortexes of air, generally small, little larger than 'dust devils,' but occasionally standing with arms upraised, screaming her incomprehensible words into the sky, and calling forth devastating tornados. She claims that these vortexes she calls up are sentient, and that her people have made an ancient pact with them, and that her eccentric behaviors and nonsensical taboos are the result of oaths she has sworn to the 'windfolk.' The only evidence to her claims thus far came during a fight in which she was knocked unconscious, and her vortexes continued to fight undirected, while one carried her away to a safer vantage point and 'stood guard' over her until she woke up.

Radiant is a Tamaranian / Rannian hybrid, a rare thing as the two races, while socially and culturally integrated in some places, are not normally reproductively compatible, and require some DNA resequencing to get their biologies to 'play well together.' He has the Tamaranean traits of absorbing solar energy to power flight and slightly superhuman strength, greatly enhanced by embedded technology resembling exotic metal tattoos over his body, allowing him to channel his stored energy into primitive and temporary hard-light constructs, such as hand to hand weapons or shields. Because of his solar absorption-fueled powers, Radiant tends to appear scantily clad, like many Tamaraneans, although he does wear a transparent suit of ballistic cloth that operates like a transsuit and body armor combined, despite being invisible to the naked eye. He deliberately cultivates a playboy reputation, and is rumored to have been intimate with most of his teammates, and many other notable figures on his homeworld, or other worlds on which the Strangers operate (thanks to Vee's zeta beam transport functions). Only his closest friends know that he's waiting for a special someone, and that his reputation is entirely fictitious.

Starwoman, decended from the Kranaltine 'Throneworlders,' channels the cosmic energy of her royal heritage. By itself, the energy sustains her without need for food, drink or environmental factors such as atmosphere, gravity, pressure or temperature, and renders her unaging and superhumanly durable. She wears special bracers of crystal, each composed of a series of crystal rods around her forearms that can detach themselves and assemble into a thick staff of seemingly indestructible crystal, allowing her to channel her cosmic energies into glowing concussive force, to propel herself through the air at great speeds, or to strike others with bludgeoning force. Starwoman is somewhat embarrassed by her royal titles, which are purely ceremonial, in the now-egalitarian culture of her world, but finds herself instinctively taking command of the team when they work together, as none of the others seem to have the slightest inclination to leadership or even basic coordination. She worries that she's coming across as elitist or bossy, and yet her teammates are relieved that she's stepped up to the unwelcome task of trying to impose some sort of order on this herd of cats.

I love the Strangers, they are a really dynamic team! They would be really fun to see in combat!

Another upgrade of an older entry, to personalize it a bit more;

Aesti Maakond, aka Colony Queen, is a Imskian mutant, unable to reduce her mass, but able to shrink all the same. When she reduces to half her mass, instead of merely growing shorter, she produces a second self, equally sized, and as she continues to reduce her size, more duplicates of herself appear, all linked to her as they share a single group consciousness. At half-height, there are eight of her. When she reduces to one tenth of her normal size, there are a thousand of her, at that size, each weighing only a few ounces, and while they have only the strength appropriate to their tiny size, they are incredibly well-coordinated, and can perform complicated mechanical tasks (or acts of surveillance) in fluid circumstances that the best programmed mechanical nanobot might prove unable to adapt to. She has learned the hard way that if any of her 'selves' do not return, the loss of mass is reflected in her larger self, as pain and bruising distributed across her body, for a smaller 'manikin,' and more traumatic damage for a more significant loss. While it's hardly the superheroic norm, she has learned that adding a few extra pounds makes it easier to acclimate to such events, as the non-vital fatty tissues seem to disproportionately absorb the trauma of lost manikin. As a result, while many other active heroes try to keep themselves in a lean, athletic fighting trim, she's strongly motivated to keep herself at a less toned 'fighting weight,' and tends to carry a bit more weight than some of her heroic peers. Woe to anyone who mistakes her for soft, however, as she shows no mercy to those who underestimate her, and is not only an excellent student of hand to hand self-defense, but also teaches martial arts (and marksmanship, and law-enforcement procedures) at her ‘day job’ as a trainer for the Science Police academy on Imsk.

Aesti carries a plasma blaster and a laser weapon, each individually powerful enough to kill someone, but, when she is reduced to her preferred form, as a swarm of a thousand selves, each about six and a half inches tall, the blaster produces only hot stinging blasts that are more annoying than harmful, and only by concentrating fire on a single target can the blasts prove dangerous. She prefers to use the blaster to ‘discourage’ attackers, concentrating dozens of shots on stubborn foes to cause them disorientation and pain, but little actual damage, while using her laser weapon as a cutting tool. She wears padded armor, finding that the most modern and up-to-date energy-resistant and impact-resistant ballistic cloth does not ‘scale down well,’ and sticking to ‘old-fashioned’ armor made of carbon nanoweave with New Atlantean coralfoam inserts. To move around, she wears a jump harness that would be only of moderate benefit to increase her jumping ability (or to slow a fall) at full size, but ‘scales down well,’ and allows her thousand tiny selves, each weighing only 2.4 ounces, to fly around nimbly. Due to the elasticene memory plastic ‘wings’ that unfold from her back when she is using her jump harness, and the rigid appearance of her body armor, she is sometimes mistaken for a swarm of tiny bug-women, instead of a mammalian humanoid, leading to her codename of Colony Queen or nicknames like the Living Swarm.

Sort of like an Imskian mated with a Carggite.

Oh hey, a world I haven't touched upon!

Xolnar, homeworld to the Substitute Legionnaire known as Rainbow Girl, is a second-stage colony world, having only been settled in the last century, and still in the midst of terraforming, as the environment and harsh weather conditions are not yet suitable for humanoid life.

Dori Andraison, like many children born to the original settlers, fled for the more comfortable and established worlds of the inner sphere at her first chance, to feel the sun on her face and breath unfiltered air, and enjoy the many luxuries available only on long-settled worlds, but not all Xolnari youth are so fortunate.

As a child, Vijay Bedama became separated from others during a storm, and was blown away down a ravine, the locator in his suit, and his life-support harness, damaged in the tumble. He managed to find a terraforming drone, and huddled near the machine, using the small zone of relatively safe atmosphere as an oasis of protection against the deadly weather of his world, and it was a day and a half before his panicked parents managed to locate him, amazed at their good fortune, and their sons cleverness in huddling in the one place where he might survive being stranded in the hostile climate of their world.

It came as a further surprise when they entered the zone of relative calm around the terraforming drone to discover that it had burned out 24 hours earlier, and that the zone of calm was emanating from their son...

Over the next years, as he matured, Vijay trained and refined this unique gift, developing the ability to extend his zone of influence from a meter around his body to a full ten meters across, not only able to regulate temperature, atmospheric content and windspeed within this area, but also humidity and air pressure, even maintaining a sphere of breathable atmosphere at comfortable temperatures for humanoid life in the vacuum of space! With further refinement, he found he could make life very *inhospitable* in his 'bio-zone,' creating powerful winds, toxic events or powerful rushes of superheated or superchilled air, affecting all or select areas of his sphere of control, not merely moving the atmosphere around, but even transmuting dangerous elements into breathable ones, or vice versa, on a subconscious level, his powers operating even when he is asleep!

As Rakshasa, Vijay now operates on his homeworld, providing life-support not only to the sealed communities of natives, but also to expeditions to the dangerous outside, where his powers accelerate the terraforming process more than a hundred expensive terraforming drones!

Members of the terrorist Adapters, philosophically opposed to terraforming worlds to suit humanoid needs, and willing to enforce their beliefs by sabotaging terraforming equipment or even breaching sealed environments and endangering settlers, find him a resourceful foe, able to travel to the most dangerous places on Xolnar and, using his abilities, cause the already dangerous elements and atmosphere of Xolnar to become even more dangerous, as if he is turning the very planet against these wild idealogues!

As with so many Legion worlds, we know little more about Xolnar than that Rainbow Girl came from it, and seemed both eager to leave, and much more eager to never, ever go back. So I decided it must not be a fun place to live!

While nearly every native of Naltor has precognitive dreams, most never dream of anything more unusual than visions of the day to come, or of massive shared visions that wrack the entire world when events such as the Great Darkness transpire.

Rarely, perhaps only a few times in their lives, a Naltorian might have a vision of events years, or even decades, in the future, although such images tend to be capricious and all-too-easy to misinterpret, to sometimes disastrous result.

A very small fraction of Naltorians are 'blessed' to foresee their own deaths, and, to weed out those who have foreseen instead what appeared to be a fatal accident, or foresaw the death of someone that looked like them, or foresaw a 'temporary' death that would be undone moments later by timely medical resuscitation, the High Seer and his Councilors carefully examine these visions, discovering which are true visions, immutably set into the future, and any peripheral information that can be gleaned from these powerful portents is used to chart the course of Naltorian society, always prepared for the events which those rare dreamers among them have foreseen during these unusually powerful and accurate foreseeings.

Iskandar Sahl was one such Naltorian, going about his life, paradoxically out of sorts and with no clear vision of what he wanted to do with his life, until the dream came, and he saw his own death. The High Seer interviewed him personally, and declared his vision true, and, in Naltorian fashion, he chose to have his face marked with a bold red stripe, from hairline to chin, passing over his left eye, so that all would know and recognize that he was one of the fated, and had stared into his own doom.

He has become an adventurer of sorts as Deathwatch, an operative of the Naltorian government, reknowned for his utter fearlessless, for he knows the hour and circumstances of his own death, and so charges headlong into seemingly unwinnable fights secure in the knowledge that whatever odds he faces, he cannot die until his appointed time.

In his early years, he dressed in typically scanty Naltorian fashion, as befits a temperate world with a fiercely libertine peoples, but he learned quickly that while he could not die, he could still be grievously injured, and spend months in rehabilitative therapy for terrible and painful wounds. He is a *fraction* more cautious now, wearing streamlined body armor with built in life-support, much like a less 'invulnerable' sort of operative might wear, and reminds himself that while he may be spared from death by the hand of fate, those who work alongside him are not so protected, and it would be foolish to endanger them unnecessarily with his daredevil antics.

The nature of his vision he keeps secret, so that none might attempt to artificially hasten the day of his death. He has foreseen that, on the day of his death, he will share words with a young man that he recognized to be his teenaged son, and so feels confident that he has at least a few decades remaining to his 'protected' status, as he has no children.

Unfortunately, fate can be capricious. In the southern province lives a young woman he spent a night with, a dozen years ago, and he has no idea that she bore a son of their brief union...

His fate is creeping ever closer, and the day will be bittersweet when he meets his son.

[Not heroes!]

The Hon'h'Re (a Sklarian word meaning 'disaster') is a sleek pirate ship, night-black and edged like a sword, leading to it being better known among the space-lanes as 'the Black Blade.' The energy absorbent black coating and mystical electric blue Talokkian runes decorating it's hull render it nearly invisible to sensors, and give it some small measure of extra protection against energy weaponry.

Captain Xanthia, a tall and powerfully built Sklarian woman with an improbable spiky headdress of hair, leads a mixed crew of Sklaran and Talokkian raiders, who board ships with sword and blaster, taking cargo and hostages for ransom, emboldened by the mystical protections afforded by First Mate Azeun, a lanky and unctuous failed Talokkian priest whose studies in mysticism and theft of a shipment of Talokkian nightstone led to his being expelled from his order. Using lore and materials studied from his previous life, Azeun creates talismans of night crystal that absorb energy, similar to those that decorate the hull of the Hon'h'Re. A single crystal might only absorb a single lethal blaster hit, but that may often be enough to allow the pirate to return fire, or to advance on a surprised foe and skewer them with the cutlasses they carry for close-combat work. More successful raids leads to crewmen being rewarded with more such protective talismans, and Azeun and his Captain each bear a dozen! Azeun himself can perform other stunts with night crystal, absorbing light to render himself invisible, or negating gravity to levitate, but prefers to leave combat to his crew.

Captain Xanthia and Azeun encourages dueling as a means of conflict resolution among the crew (and non-lethal dueling as sport, exercise and training), and themselves duel on occasion, increasing their advantage against the sorts of security forces they are likely to engage, highly trained with their blasters, and unprepared for blaster-resistant foes who attack with swords.

During their occasional sparring matches, Azeun likes to pretend that he 'lets the Captain win,' but the truth is that she's just that much better with a sword than he.

Their use of the night crystals has depleted the initial stock stolen by Azeun, and they have found it necessary to raid Talokk VIII, to secure a new supply. Unfortunately, the Shadow Champion chose that week to visit her cousin...

Another idea inspired by the 'Cloak and Dagger' naming convention. I wanted a 'Blue and Gold' pair that had nothing at all to do with Booster and Beetle, and decided to go with a pair of pirates, one Talokkian 'blue' and the other Sklarian 'gold.'

This one came from reading about Kid Psycho in the archive thread:

Kid Conundrum is one of the stranger footnotes of United Planets history. He was a well regarded hero on his homeworld of Hajor several years before three teenagers ever formed the Legion of Superheroes, and he had a career which lasted over a decade before he vanished as abruptly as he'd appeared. Many Hajorians assumed he'd died protecting their world one final time, but nobody ever knew for sure.

The truth was much weirder than anybody could ever have imagined.

Gahn Iggagna had been born with the ability to project his mind into any of his genetic ancestors or descendants at any point in history as long as they were the same physical age as himself. He learned as a young child that he could not only sense what they sensed, but could control their bodies as well, leaving his relatives in a catatonic state while his psyche was dominant. He was content to use this power for his own amusement until one day while usurping his great great grandfather's form in the 29th century he accidentally witnessed a murder. As soon as he returned to his own body and time, he researched the incident and discovered that the murder had gone unsolved all these years. Gahn anonymously tipped the authorities off to what had really happened, and the solving of a cold case more than 150 years old made the global news.

Inspired by this, he created a costume to hide his identity and embarked on a new career as the superhero Kid Conundrum. With insights from the past, he was instrumental in solving many cold cases. With insights from the future (as well as the occasional reverse-engineered future gadget) he always seemed to be one step ahead of present day criminals.

Kid Conundrum's career ended when he learned on a future jaunt that his planet would be destroyed in less than a decade. Experience had taught him that he couldn't change destiny, he could only take advantage of his foreknowledge. Gahn focused everything he had on starting a family and working hard to support it. When Hajor's destruction loomed near, Gahn arranged for his family to be sent off-world so they would survive. He couldn't bring himself to save himself though, and stayed with his world through its destruction.

To this day, Gahn's wife Selia and their young children Dom and Tara have no idea of his secret life as a superhero or the odd power he held.

Kid Conundrum is pretty awesome! I love the power, as it's not as versatile as precognition or past-viewing, since he has to have an ancestor / descendent in the area he wants to view, but also far more controlled than Dream Girl's prophecies, since he can motor around in the future to view specific things and doesn't just get afflicted with random visions.

Very cool way of having a hero from the lost world of Hajor!

He kind of sets the seeds for a potential reappearance as well. Hajor may be destroyed, but his children represent a potential future place his spirit, or at least his unique powerset, could have jumped to...

Cool character! Very imaginative, and certainly not a power we've seen before!

Also cool to see a name-dropped world like Hajor get representation!

Jakobi Gisel Meer was born on Touston, and discovered her powers as a child, proving able to either attract or repel non-sentient living creatures. At first, she seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding lost pets, or staring down agitated animals, but when flocks of butterflies began settling down on her skin, or angry bees fled from the sight of her, people took note, and it was soon discovered that her ability to attract or repel wildlife even applied to plant life, if she concentrated, allowing her to cause days of growth within hours, as local grasses and vines crawled across bare ground to reach her, or allowing her to repel plant growth over a period of hours, with the plants literally uprooting themselves and creeping away, allowing for development of overgrown land.

J. Gisel found herself all-too-often called to the northern continent, to replant fields that had been uprooted by unseasonal disasters, and it was some years before the odd rash of events was linked to another Toustonite, E. Davis Ester, who left the planet soon after his abilities were identified and confirmed. She found it something of a relief, as she preferred to use her gifts on the southern continent, and remain closer to home.

It was something of a disappointment when 'Calamity King' was rejected from the Legion of Super-Heroes, and returned to Touston...

The two 'heroes' of Touston have little contact, other than her visits to clean up environmental damages from his own powers, and about the only thing they have been seen publically agreeing on was their mutually adverse reaction to a news interviewer quipping that, 'As long as you're going to spend the rest of your life cleaning up after him, you two should probably get married...'

Like all of Touston's metahumans, J. Gisel Meer has been drafted into the planetary service, and wears a uniform similar to E. Davis', only in shades of blue, rather than green, highlighting her bright blue eyes and offsetting her strawberry-blonde hair.

The Sidekick, a Protean whose personality and physiology never quite matured, who spends much of its time traveling the UP and ‘imprinting’ on attractive and popular heroes, transforming into a child-sized duplicate of them with similar powers (and temporarily losing its own protean shapeshifting powers, and its memory of being anyone other than the guise it has adopted) and serving as their ‘sidekick.’ It continues to use its telepathy, mostly unconsciously, to anticipate and better serve its inspiration, but generally proves to be more of a nuisance than it is worth, and never quite taking the hint that its assistance is unwelcome. During its time on Earth, it became obsessed first with Sun Boy, taking the form of a child-hero named Daylight, with light and heat (but not flame) generating powers, then with Dream Girl, taking the form of Princess Sleepwalker, a Naltorian child in a ridiculous getup who was capable of seeing the future, and finally with Brainiac Five, taking the form of a Coluan child that called itself Brainiac Six and had both super-intelligence (mostly telepathically stealing ideas from others, including Brainy, and force field powers).

Something else else in the Sidekick's unstable protean nature allows it to duplicate the powers of those it mimics, in addition to their personalities, and it usually takes on a youthful and optimistic demeanor, like a hyperactive child on a grand adventure, although its innate intelligence, telepathy and grand obsession with its current hero has led in the past to some truly insightful commentary, at times, when its 'hero' has actually chosen to speak with it, and not just dismiss it out of hand, as it ends up learning everything about the target of its obsession, and can provide some truly insightful advice, when not shooed away or dismissed out of hand.

When 'between gigs,' The Sidekick, whose Protean name is a telepathic glyph unpronounceable to most humanoids, has a distracted and child-like personality, refusing most attempts to communicate and shuffling along dispiritedly, waiting for its next inspiration...

Another installment of *Villains* of Other Worlds!

The Planetary Gang has appeared multiple times, and in multiple iterations, to plague the good people of the Sol system.

Their usual motif is to have members that represent different planets (and sometimes moons, the asteroid belt and / or the sun) of the Earth solar system, although they've never had a member that specifically represented Earth itself.

Their membership has included, among others;

Mars Master – The original Mars Master was a human who grew up on Mars and had a fascination with ancient Rome, having studied the use of the gladius and the hasta, among other arts, and speaking Latin in combat. He used illegal gene-mods to enhance his strength, reflexes and endurance, and had technological enhancements to his Roman-style weaponry and armor, but was still nowhere the league of a truly superhuman combatant, like Timber Wolf. After some time in Takron-Galtos, he returned to a civilian life. The new Mars Master is a volume of red iron-silicate particulates that can solidify itself into a human form, fusing some of his constituent particles into a steel-hard crystalline form as Roman style armor and weaponry (generally a spear, short sword and shield). He’s superhumanly tough, almost as hard as solid iron, held together by an innate electromagnetic attraction, and yet he can also fly apart, turning into a skin-flensing ‘dust storm’ of metallic flakes, and travel through the air in this form. A strong enough blow can ‘stun’ him, and cause him to fall apart for a moment, before he can gather his bearings and ‘pull himself together’ (or fly away) and heroes with electrical or magnetic powers tend to be his bane. Despite his association with Mars, the red planet of war, Mars Master works with the Planetary Gang primarily as a means of funding a cure for his condition, as he was once a flesh and blood man, and wishes to be again. Since he intends to retire after finding a cure, he strenuously avoids unnecessary bloodshed or casualties on the Gang’s heists, as he intends to be a normal man again, and doesn’t want to be branded a psychopath and end up in prison for the rest of his human life. His human identity as Italian-born Paulo Marin is not a matter of public record, as he is believed to have died in the incident that resulted in his new ferro-silicate form.

Asteroid Belle – Bel Serap Verde is an unnaturally thin young woman, who, like other members of the insular communities who had lived and worked in the Asteroid Belt for centuries before artificial gravity became viable, grew up in microgravity and has prehensile feet that are fully usable as a second pair of hands. She sits serenely, floating cross-legged, supported by her telekinetic powers, coordinating the activities of the Planetary Gang during heists, distinguished by her wafer-thin vacuum-suit and sealed helmet, a common sight among her overly cautious people, even when visiting worlds with a stable environment, where they are in no danger of a containment failure or atmospheric breach. From a backpack, a half-dozen small ‘meteors’ of dense metal and mineral drift forth to orbit her on waves of telekinetic energy that her brain generates unconsciously, so that, even as she sleeps, items tend to float around her in a slow dance. When combat ensues, these ‘meteors’ can intercept attacks, or lash out with bone-crushing force, each weighing a hundred pounds or more (far more than she could ever lift with her micro-gravity adapted limbs!). She wears a grav-harness, and a second backup grav-harness, being compulsively over-prepared, as, bereft of her telekinesis, she wouldn’t even be able to stand in earth-normal gravity, and would suffocate in minutes, unable to draw breath. She names her ‘asteroids,’ Pallas, Vesta, Europa, etc. but this is affectation, and she will snatch up loose debris to replace them as they are blasted away or thrown out of her sight. They’re just rocks, after all. She’s fanatical about planning things, and is essential to the team’s success, having ended up being the Gang’s default tactical planner, since her plans are generally meticulously well thought out, and nobody else has proven willing to oppose her.

Saturn Man – Muunokhoi Ganbaatar (‘Khoika’ for short) can create multiple halo-like rings of radiant electromagnetic energy, either defensively around himself or offensively around others to bind / shock them. He can also levitate objects he has surrounded with his ‘rings,’ including himself, and jokes that he has his own ‘Flight Ring.’ A mixed-race Earth-human (primarily Mongolian), ‘Saturn Man’ has no relation at all with Saturn or Titan, other than his namesake energy ‘rings.’ He also wears an assortment of metal rings, and has metal bracers, metal arm bands, metal greaves, a very thick metal belt, metal bands around his shoulders and a metal collar, all connected by wires and tubes, with a control panel on the belt, which helps him to control and maintain his electromagnetic rings (without the setup, he can still generate his rings, but they aren’t as strong, he can’t fly as fast with them, and he can’t shock people with electricity). Saturn Man Is a sadistic ‘traditionalist’ super-villain, and likes to grab people off the ground in a halo of force and crush them slowly, while monologuing. He likes to think of himself as the leader of this incarnation of the Planetary Gang, and none of the others care to challenge the ruthless man on this assumption, even if Asteroid Belle is fairly obviously the one calling the shots, most of the time. Saturn Man seems comfortable with that arrangement, as he’s often too distracted by posturing and bullying and using his power to cause harm and intimidate civilians once a heist gets underway to bother with those pesky little details that she’s already handling so well…

Dark Messenger – The Dark Messenger (representing Pluto) appears in the form of a small child-like person made of black energy. His touch causes intense cold and shock, like exposure to outer space, which can be fatal, although the Dark Messenger seems to accept that the others don’t like it to kill people wantonly. Unknown to most, the Dark Messenger is the ‘soul-self’ of a very old man named Venn Zaravos, located somewhere far away (in his own private space station, which even his teammates don’t know about!), wrapped in bandages and unable to move of his own power. As the Dark Messenger he acts like a petulant child-like unfathomable alien entity to draw suspicion away from his true nature (and vulnerability). He is also a bit senile, and has lost himself in the act, growing more childish and petulant the longer he maintains this pretense. The more he shocks and chills others, the more he prolongs the life of his aging host body, so he has a vested interest in attacking guards, or even bystanders, to leave them unconscious, or dying…

Caelus – A member of the first iteration of the Planetary Gang (representing Uranus), and not seen since, the creature known as Caelus was composed of ice-like crystals and generated hurricane force winds and liquid nitrogen level cold. On its powerful winds, it could also propel hundreds of razor sharp icicles, ice diamond ‘blades’ or snowflake ‘shuriken’ at great speeds. It had a humanoid electric blue outline, with blocky shoulders, a large head-crest and three blade-like fingers. Stronger and tougher than a human, it also had limited use of flight on cold winds with little fine control. It did not control winds, but somehow generated them from within itself, and proved to be capable of flying in space at much greater speeds than in an atmosphere, leaving a cometary ‘tail’ in its wake. Real name and species unknown as it was never captured (or seen again after its first appearance).

Eros – Nord Welles, representing Venus in the first iteration of the Planetary Gang, has the power to create warm clouds of mist that cause people to become light-headed, disoriented, prone to hallucinations and to eventually pass out (and, if they remain too long after this, to die). The mist is thick enough to obscure vision, and utterly foul the senses of anyone who tracks by scent. Exposure to the chemical compounds that comprise the mist causes suggestibility, pleasurable lassitude, addiction and health problems. As Eros, Nord seems to be an attractive man who uses addicted and suggestible flunkies to fight his fights for him, but he’s become hopelessly addicted to his own clouds (although surprisingly resistant to their health-wasting effects, displaying above average strength, stamina and pain resistance) and is in a constant state of drug-enhanced megalomania and overconfidence. He uses narcotic fogs during crimes, generally, to sedate and manipulate civilians and authorities present, as well as obscure the actions of his teammates. Saturn Man has developed special filters and a topical antidote / screen against the effects, for use by him and other teammates, to protect them from Eros’ powers. To those unaffected by his mists, and able to see him clearly (since he’s often surrounded by visible clouds that obscure his appearance), Eros is in relatively poor shape, pale, scrawny and dissipated, and looks haggard, with lank hair and hollow, sunken eyes, due to the effects of his drug-mist on himself, but those affected by the mist see him as painfully beautiful. He can ‘fly’ on his mists, but only a meter off of the ground, and even generate a think shell of atmosphere around himself in a vacuum, providing temporary life-support (which tends to also intoxicate those he’s harboring). Eros has not been active since the first crime spree of the original Planetary Gang, and remains in Takron-Galtos, on life-support, having collapsed under the cumulative degenerative effects of his own powers, which, perversely, are the only thing keeping him alive. Attempting to detoxify and ‘cure’ him, at this stage, would place so much strain on his body that it would kill him.

Miss Mercury – Karadia Xin has super-speed, and leaves a trail of fire behind her as she runs, as a result of the high-octane chemical her body produces to fuel her superspeed, which evaporates in her sweat and turns into a pyrophoric cloud that bursts into flames in her wake. She appears as a silvery faceless female humanoid figure wearing a red outfit with yellow trim, but the silvery appearance is a protective bodysuit she wears under her red and yellow ‘costume,’ and when she pulls back her silvery skintight mask, she’s a red-skinned humanoid with blonde hair and golden eyes. The silver suit gives her life-support (she requires much higher temperatures to survive) and protects her from the abrasive friction of super-speed travel. Ranging from coldly practical to hot-headed impetuous and emotional, she’s the 31st century equivalent of bipolar, and if stabilized, might turn away from a life of crime, particularly if a combined rational argument / emotional appeal can be made that appeals to both her strong pragmatic streak *and* to her suppressed sense of empathy. Unlike some other speedsters, she does not normally think or react at superhuman speeds, but has to ‘enter the zone,’ when travelling at superspeed. Much of the time, she’s actually pretty laid-back, and surprisingly patient. Her teammates express annoyance that someone capable of moving at supersonic speeds can take an hour in the bathroom, always arrive late to meetings, and doesn’t finish reading assignments any faster than anyone else. Favorite combat tactic is to sweep past enemies at superspeed, bowling them over with a rush of super-heated air / explosive sonic boom that trails in her wake, setting things on fire and knocking them flying.

Moon Maiden – Maxia Keiros can attract or repel things with ‘moon magnetism,’ allowing her to fly by repelling herself from the ground, or become invisible by repelling light, or travel into space or underwater while maintaining a breathable environment around herself (attracting air / repelling water). She has a Mediterranean skin tone, with long black hair that floats around as if she’s underwater and large solid black eyes, and wears a sparkly white crystal costume. She claims to have gained her power from a crystal tiara of ‘moon crystal’ which is indestructible, but that is a deception to trick others into thinking that she’ll be powerless if they take her ‘moon crystal tiara’ away from her. The tiara was once the source of her powers, but she is hardly powerless without it. She also wears bracers, a pectoral and belt of similar ‘moon crystal,’ but these items are synthetic diamond, and have no special traits. Moon Maiden does seem to lose her powers at odd intervals, as she only has a certain amount of power each month, and if she exhausts it, she has to wait up to thirty days for it to recharge (or, she has recently discovered, by visiting the Earth's moon, Luna, and touching its surface, which is much easier!). She tends to keep the exact nature of her moments of weakness a secret, and is prone to getting caught up in a ‘good fight’ and showing off too much, and then running out of power and having to make excuses like ‘I got bored’ to justify her poor showing. Maxia thinks of herself as a bit of a princess, superior to others, and steals mostly for new pretty things. She’s the most likely to turn against the others, because she doesn’t really think of herself as a bad person, let alone a supervillain, and could be convinced that she’s just ‘fallen in with bad people’ and can ‘turn things around.’ Unfortunately, she’ll likely prove as treacherous and unreliable a hero as she did a villain…

Jenny Jupiter – Doyen Mora was born in the factories deep within Jupiter’s atmosphere, and grew up under gravitational forces that would crush a normal earth-human in seconds. Super-strong and tough, due to adaptation to survive the crushing gravity of Jupiter, ‘Jenny’ is built like the love-child of an elephant and a Mack truck, with the strength of a hundred men and bones as tough as composite diamond, to support her incredible weight. She has a special gravity harness to reduce her weight and allow her to walk around without collapsing the floor beneath her, and also uses it to simulate a higher gravity, as the ‘low’ gravity of Earth makes her nauseous and light-headed, and could kill her, over time. Wearing a fairly utilitarian work suit, practically a uniform among her strongly communist people, Jenny has the ‘big red spot’ as a distinguishing symbol on her costume. ‘Jenny’ has a chip on her shoulder about being considered ‘the dumb bruiser,’ despite having designed her own gravity harness and having a keen mechanical mind (not a theoretical genius, by any stretch, but a highly skilled and trained mechanic).

The Planetary Gang briefly had an energy creature with a serpentine appearance representing the Sun, but never got around to fielding a member representative of the Earth or of Neptune. Like the Devil's Dozen before them, they never quite got around to filling out their planned roster...