Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Other Sensor Girl identities

Reviewing the issues leading up to the reveal that Sensor Girl was *spoiler alert* actually Projectra, I found several letters suggesting other solutions to her mystery.
What do you think about the ideas the readers had at the time? While I wouldn't trade the actual solution for any of these, a couple had potential. Would any of these have been worth exploring?
Do you know any other theory that was going on at the time?
And did anyone reading Volume 3 as it was being published solve the mystery correctly? There were a couple hints that could help, but since you would've needed to guess Projectra's powers had evolved significantly I don't think too many people guessed right.
According to the letters page a few guessed correctly, but I'm curious if that's the case for anyone here.

By far the most popular on the letters page seems to be the Supergirl Theory, unsurprisingly since it's the one discussed the most in-universe. While I'm glad they didn't do it, because bringing her back so soon would've cheapened Supergirl's death... the idea that she had been seriously scarred by her battle with the Anti-Monitor, possibly reducing her powers, had potential.

Several letters suggest Saturn Girl or some variation, like a mental projection from her. One of the weakest theories, I don't think it would hold up for more than a couple of issues.

One letter suggests Sensor Girl was Proty, which I don't like. Not just because I don't like Proty in general, but it would've made Quislet less unique if we had two completely alien members joining together (I would argue that Tellus is far closer to a human than either Quislet or Proty). If it had happened later it could've worked. (provided they didn't reveal the Protean was a mind-swapped Legionnaire for decades, of course)

Another suggestion that apparently was frequent was Quantum Queen from the Wanderers. Not sure how, since her powers wouldn't match. Has she ever done anything interesting?

Someone suggested Saturn Queen (as does Shrinking Violet in one issue). Not sure we needed another bad guy infiltrating the Legion. Assuming she became one of the good guys (most likely since Imra vouched for her), maybe it could've worked for a few issues, but you can't easily replace the original telepath. And she would've made Tellus less useful.

Out of all the suggestions in the letters page, by far my favorite is Harbinger (the Monitor's protegé). No clue whatsoever on how it could've been her, but at least it would've been SOMETHING done with her: I really liked her during Crisis, but she's been completely wasted after that.

In my opinion...

...Crisis was such an overrated pile of dreck with so many negative consequences, that I welcome anything that would cheapen it.

Far as I'm concerned, Supergirl should have been Sensor Girl as originally planned.

https://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=982545#Post982545

My all-time favorite suggestion is one made by someone here on Legion World that it was the Satan Girl aspect of Supergirl, somehow having survived and being depowered.

I can see why Quantum Queen was a popular idea, because even though Levitz had officially written the Adult Legion stories out of continuity, there was still a lot of momentum in the idea that she would eventually join the Legion. Definitely not seeing how she would fit power wise, though.

A reformed Saturn Queen also has precedence in an Adult Legion story, though the fact that a younger version of her hadn't been introduced at that point made her problematic.

Honestly, I don't really remember having a theory at the time, but I was definitely surprised when it turned out to be Projectra.

There really aren't a lot of plausible candidates in retrospect.

I was always partial to her being Supergirl.

No I didn't guess the answer ahead of time. But then I tend not to go very deep into solving mysteries and just enjoy the journey. The only one I remember wondering about was the four Supermen during the Reign of the Supermen and I certainly didn't guess the identities of the two particularly mysterious ones. As for Sensor Girl/Projectra, my response was mostly - "shrug", ok, let's see what you do with it moving forward.

I could see Quantum Queen being able to mimic a great deal of the stuff Sensor Girl does if she really put her mind to it - sensing different parts of the EM spectrum, visual illusions, blinding people etc - even when Jeckie stole all of the Persuader's senses from him I imagine that could be replicated with the right frequency aimed at the right part of the brain (although it might be a bit more permanent if QQ did it). Super-hearing could just be QQ creating an invisible duplicate and sending it to a remote location to report back at lightspeed. QQ is powerful and versatile enough that you could explain anything away if you throw enough comic book sciencey words at it

Mind you, that doesn't explain why she would never have used any of her more overtly destructive abilities but I guess if they were gonna depower Supergirl they could just depower QQ as well...

I am glad it was Jeckie though, it really took her from being one of the Legion I hated most to one of my favourites!

I liked the choice of Jeckie, and her Sensor Girl persona was a fun upgrade that flowed from her original powerset, sensory deception to sensory manipulation and gave her a bit of a clever choice to not announce that she was an illusionist to everyone, like most super illusion characters.

OTOH, I like the idea of just using a version of Kara, using mostly her super-senses. (Perhaps the time travel to attempt to snatch her away from the moment of her death in Crisis somehow only made it throw the chronal shockwaves surrounding that event with a 'chronal echo' or 'fragment' of her that possessed only her sensory powers?)

I also like the notion that 'Sensor Girl' is an identity used at alternate times by Projectra, by this 'chronal echo of Kara' *and* by Imra, who by this time is 'mostly retired' and away being a mom, but sometimes shows up and takes up the guise of Sensor Girl for a mission rather than come back from retirement.

Sensor Girl as a shareable ID among the Legion women for different missions could be fun actually!

I dig the idea of bad guys never knowing exactly what they're gonna get when they face Sensor Girl because every time they face her she's using a vague enough version of someone's powers that they can never really pin it down as being one person behind the mask.

Yeah, I like the idea of allowing Imra, in particular, to sometimes borrow the identity when she's on Earth for some other reason, like diplomatic stuff or whatever, since she and Garth have the kids to raise, but she's a bit less burned out by the pressure than Garth has historically been (at least, pre-Johns, when he was less of a hothead and more of a wearied ex-leader who didn't really blossom under all the pressure and seemed a bit relieved to be free of it). This would allow Imra, who didn't seem as 'done' with the pressure of the job, to get her hand in on brief occasions, while still being 'officially retired' and not inviting public scrutiny.

Plus the idea of 'Sensor Girl' sometimes having inexplicably different abilities amuses me. Legion foes would never know what she's capable of!

So, other possibilities:

De-splorped Glorith?

Psyche?

Laurel Kent (long believed only to have invulnerability, her sensory powers suddenly kick in?)

Nightwind or Lamprey?

Ferro Lad's never before seen sister?

Shvaughn or GiGi, with never before revealed powers?

Night Girl?

Infectious Lass?

Rainbow Girl? Eyeful Ethel?

Ooh, I like the idea of playing with how Ferro Lad just sort of mysteriously had a never-before-seen brother, by giving him a never-before-seen sister, too! (Also plays on how Garth had new siblings show up a couple of times.)

"How big was this family?"

To follow along loosely the theme of her brothers having iron-body powers, she might have some electromagnetic sensitivity, vastly more refined than anything a Braalian can do?