Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Brainy's Legion

Having dismantled the group and had it shut down by the UP, perhaps the intended plan was for Brainy to be in charge of building it back up. Or at least trying to. It would lead on nicely from #0’s Tharok origin through Comet Queen’s mission and to the last issue hint.

"He's probably calculating a way to find a new Legion based on Colu… with him in absolute charge."

But just who would want to join Brainy’s team, or even be in a position to do so?




Yes
Querl Dox
"Let me finish trying to save the universe." & "Would you please let me get back to expiating my sins." - On Colu, scheming.

Jacques Foccart
"I have never understood these powers since Brainiac gave them to me. And after this journey, I know them less."- On Earth. If he wants some answers it's going to have to be Brainy. Not to mention Brainy saving his sister. It would also be nice to see him develop those political skills of v4. The Legion may need them going up against a UP that closed them down.

Brek Banin
"The worlds still need us, Legionnaire."- The Legion's cheerleader. Interesting to see how his idealism copes under Brainy being in charge. About an issue, probably. Not time enough to recruit the other subs.

Grava
In stasis under Querl Dox's care. Her condition is due to a plot against Brainiac.

Harmonia Li
Time travel obsession & interesting morality. Brainy's perfect Legion partner.

Elsewhen
Lost in Time - Brin Londo, Drake Burroughs, Troy Stewart, Dawnstar, Ganglios, Yera Allon, Ti'julk Mr'asz

Xerox moved in space & time – Blok, Mysa Nal, Glorith II

Out of this dimension -
Tinya Wazzo
"I have to get out of here. Even if it means never coming back." - Possibly shifted back to Bgtzl.

Quislet
Dumped off panel - Probably back in home dimension


No
Gim Allon - "I'm glad the fleet was called back." - Part of the UP fleet now.

Lar Gand - "Aaargh--!!" - Critically injured and unavailable.

Jo Nah - "Tinya's alive. Somewhere." - That's his only focus and Brainy is reluctant to prioritise it.

Tenzil Kem - Dumped off panel earlier in the run on Bismoll.

Jan Arrah - "I have a science police officer with plans for you, Jan." - working with SP, and presumably the now never seen Erin.

Nura Nal - "And now the Legion disappearing too. And with it, my life as a Legionnaire." - Looks to be staying on Naltor.

Val Armorr - On Orando - possible figment of Projectra's imagination

Projectra - "The stark reality of what has happened continues to sink in painfully." - Back on Orando projecting her dead husband.

Tasmia Mallor - "I'm taking Mon-el home to heal if he can." - Looking for a cure for Mon-El, wherever that takes her.

Unlikely
Luornu Durgo Taine - "Or the heroes we trained who went back to their home worlds." - Looks likely to stay on Earth. Previous runs had them train UP Heroes.

Chuck Taine- "They can’t take away the worlds we saved, Luornu." - - Looks likely to stay on Earth. Previous runs had them train UP Heroes.

Probable
Marya Pai - student with no better option - "Would you like me to speak to Marya? Advice form a common background?" - Li

Hadru Jamik - student with no better option - "Give me a chance Marya."

Possible
Reep Daggle - He may have to rebuild his father's business as per 5YG. But he may still finance Brainy. Unlikely to have returned to Durla.

Salu Digby - Possibly on Winath as per 5YG. Hard to imagine her not wanting to join up for action.

Ayla Ranzz - Probably on Winath as per 5YG - will her assertiveness shown in previous Levitz runs, mean she's more likely to join up? Certainly more than her brother.

Not at First
Imra Ardeen-Ranzz - "He's probably calculating a way to find a new Legion based on Colu." - On Winath, but already calculating the future with a Legion. The most likely to return, if only to keep Brainy in check.

Rokk Krinn - "Rokk was first and best." - On Winath, but may be needed to lead again, possibly by Reep Daggle as per 5YG, or by Imra Ranzz or UP insistence.

Garth Ranzz - "I only wanted an excuse to hang around with this pretty woman." - On Winath. Doesn’t look like he’ll go back without his wife.

Lydda Jath - Either stays on Earth teaching at the Academy or, having been reconciled with Rokk Krinn, stay with him on Winath.

Prospective Members
Tel Vole - "I can do some good there." - Concerned about the bigger picture than graduating to the legion. Was the leader of the Academy students when it mattered & a replacement for Starboy.

Jeddiah Rikane - Possibly lined up to be the replacement, at least for a while, for Phantom Girl. Instead of Tinya & Jo you get Jed & Tel. Also provides a bit of strength for the team.

Jenni Ognats - Sitting around on Earth. Would be a valuable asset for some of Brainy's experiments. Not to mention her valuable Legion experience.

Danielle Foccart - A bit speculative, but would be a way of getting her brother onto the team and her powers were hinted strongly by Levitz in his previous run. Those powers would be essential in Brainy's proposed "master plan"

So, there you have it - a team of

Dox, Foccart J., Foccart D., Banin, Grava, Li, Pai, Jamik, Digby, Ranzz A., Vole, Rikane, Ognats and possibly Daggle

leading into the Levitz equivalent of the start of the 5YG.

Actually, skipping through the issues, I think Levitz was hoping he could add the following two to the Yescast above. I seem to recall Levitz stating that fan reaction had been cool towards them, but here are a few quotes.

From Back Issue 68 - Do you have any upcoming new characters, any that you think will really be a big player in the book?

LEVITZ: There’s a couple of new characters—Mwindaji
and Otaki—who show up, and they’re around for a
storyline or two, so we see where they go from here.

From Interweb interview
Right now, the Legionnaires in the 31st Century believe their comrades are dead. That's had significant effect on them.

There's kind of no middle ground, so if they are really going to be believed dead and they are really going to be lost in the 21st Century, we've got to keep that gap pretty wide. I'd hope there will be some point in time when whoever survives the 21st Century could be back in contact with them, but for now, there are no signs of the return.

There are also numerous quotes for Levitz wishing to add a bit more diversity to the Legion.

So, considering that there's no way he could tell if the Legion Lost book would be a success, I get the very strong feeling he had written those characters off for the duration.

So with Saturn Girl in semi- retirement and Tellus with the Legion Lost team...

Bina Nawoti (Codename: Otaki)looked very likely to fill those berths.

With Dawnstar & Timberwolf also lost in the 21st century
Gahji (Code Name: Mwindaji)would have used his more localised (and possibly scent based tracking to take those spots.

There was also an interview where they stated that they wanted to make things harder for people to get around in the 31st century, so no chance of a Gates equivalent it would seem.

I'm also thinking that you would really haveto keep Ultra Boy around. The team needs the strength and it would have been a sub plot going on in the background anyway, considering the popularity of the character.

Any thoughts on whether all the above was where things would have gone? Would you have read it if it did?

I stopped reading the retroboot after 6 issues, so I appreciate you doing such an amazing job of filling us in on everything going on around the end of it.

I love Brainy, although I do get the panel-hog accusations, and I love L.E.G.I.O.N., so a Brainy-led Legion would definitely have some appeal for me. I'd at least try the first issue, as long as it was written by somebody other than Levitz or Giffen. My choice would be Andy Diggle -- he's hit-and-miss, but his Adam Strange mini-series from several years ago is a favorite of mine.

I think members of any Legion created by the current Brainiac 5 would have one single common characteristic: the ability to unquestioningly follow Brainy's orders.

Some Random Titan Telepath
Some Random Bgztlr
Some Random Daxamite
Some Random Geequoan

etc., etc.

...as long as they see Querl as the leader.

Of course, it would be only a short time before Brainiac 5 learns that pawns quickly, and sometimes unintentionally, become cannon fodder, and power alone does not equal heroism.

The above was culled pretty much from the current plots, rather than jumping too far away to keep the continuity (with the exception of Computo which I took a punt on as I was worried early on about numbers)

I think that most of the "Yes" ones have a certain loyalty to him, or at least the organisation. Likewise the students.

I can see it ending badly. However, I can also see that, since he can be infuriatingly right, that it goes well once a few people come into ease the emotional trauma he doesn't seem to deal with too well.

The titan equivalent is Otaki, The Bgztlr (glad you typed it) is Rikane, the daxamite would be Nah filling in and the Geequoan equivalent would be...um...Nura Nal making a guest appearance!

All bases covered

I think it's a good idea and I agree mostly with your guesses for individual Legionnaires.

I think Element Lad would stay, though. He's not the type to just agree to whatever the SPs have in store for him, and he's been one of the most dedicated Legionnaires.

Would love for Gravity Kid and Power Boy to join up, I just don't know if they'd throw in with Brainy. Vi and Ayla seem likely to me.

Knowing Brainy, he wouldn't settle for second-rate. If he had access to a better tracker or a better telepath, he'd invite those over Mwindaji or Otaki - both of whose powers seemed to be fairly limited.



That's a bit sad. If they had stuck to Gates' original distance limitation of about 50 meters, it would have been fine!

Overall, I wouldn't mind reading about a "new beginning" for the Legion. Though much as I love Brainy, I'm not sure I wouldn't get tired of him! He's been hogging the spotlight quite a bit lately.

Interesting analysis! I like how you included quotes from each Legionnaire that could be used as a hint as to their final choice on the matter!

Tel and Jed filling in for Thom and Tinya is certainly an interesting possibility, and I'd much prefer Danielle showing up to some of the newer characters we've seen (like Minwadji (sp?) and Otaku, both of whom seemed a trifle lifeless, and like they had been explicitly designed to replace missing Legionnaires, as if, as said about Brainy recruiting a bunch of yes-men with the powers he wants, less about the hero or the person, more about filling some power quota, like there's a checklist and there has to be someone who can read minds and someone with a tracking power, despite most superhero teams getting on fine without either).

Personality wise, I don't know much about Danielle, either, for that matter, since most of what I've read of her, she was a kid possessed by Computo, and didn't really get much past that.

Jed, having been turned down for Legion membership at least twice, seems like he might be a bit cynical and standoffish about an invitation now. I think he'd take it, mostly because Tel would leap at it, and they seem joined at the hip now, but take over the Gates / Wildfire / Timber Wolf role of saying something negative from time to time.

Tel, on the other hand, would replace Polar Boy as the enthusiastic newbie, who'd take it even further than Brek did, in that he might still get a little over-excited and do something rash and impulsive. (Brek had years of experience leading the Subs, when he made it, to tamper that enthusiasm, and his idealism died hard when the Legion turned out to be nothing like he'd built it up to be/ Now, with Dirk's death, he seems likely to be even *more* serious and stick-up-his-butt than he was during the Trial of Brainy.)

What's funky about the deaths is that, in comic book land, they aren't always what they seem. Thom, in particular, has been recently described as all quantum tangled-up in/with at least three other alternate universe Star Boys, so much that they had to be 'drained' out of him on-panel. That's a complete 'out' for their to still be a lot of 'Thom' out there, all tangled up in his alternate universe selves, and just waiting to be extracted from *them* and re-integrated into a new body (cloned from the original? repaired via 31st century medicine from the chunky salsa they found under those rocks? whatever!).

Bringing Dirk back as an entity that has evolved beyond a matter body, and is pure burning solar plasma, would be a little too much like Wildfire, IMO, and I doubt that he's going to be back while Harmonia Li is hanging about, since she's most likely got control of fire (and water), in addition to air and earth, anyway. *Another* thing I shall unreasonably blame her for!

Some of the Lost crew could also return, although, some of them, I'd rather not return. With comics, every super-power becomes kind of a limit. If the team has a teleporter, you either have to eliminate story elements involving getting places, or getting past obstacles, or restrict the teleporter from being able to use his darn super-power (which seems mean!), or write in artificial reasons why the teleporter isn't present for adventure X (in which case, why have one on the team, if you are spending all this effort making him A) not be around and B) his powers stop working all the time). Dawnstar is similar. There's no 'in-universe reason' why the SP don't show up to Legion HQ once a week with the newest list of the 'Galaxies Most Wanted' and sit back for the minute and a half it would take her to find them all. Cryptozoologists show up thirty minutes later with a list of creatures they can't confirm exist and she says 'live underground, no, on planet X, no, no, no.' and sends them on their way. We need to find the Fatal Five! "Sarya's corpse is still in it's coffin. Tharok is on Weber's World. Validus is beyond the galactic rim. Persuader is on Rimbor, in a seedy hotel. Mano is floating in the debris field of Angtu. Here's their coordinates on this map. Now go away, my favorite program is coming on the telly..." Either her 'infallible tracking powers' work, and the universe would be very different place, with no criminal *ever* being able to evade justice or hide out for longer than it takes to call Dawnstar on the phone, or they mysteriously fail all the time, in which case, she's 'flies in space chick' and might as well not have a tracking power... If her power had been explicitly limited when she was introduced, that might have been better, but she's been hot-and-cold lass right from the start, either with practical omniscience, or 'oh, I can't find them, something, something time-sickness-phasing-whatever...' It comes off cheap when her entire reason to be on the team is written away time after time, instead of actually addressing her power in such a way that it works consistently and yet also doesn't ruin anything from a story perspective.

Personally, I think Element Lad is very under utilised. This is mainly due to his power. He should be winning pretty much any combat the Legion enter into. Riot or fire? Not with the oxygen levels changed. Rampaging foe? Not with that Inertron shield. Need squeaky voices? Helium adjustment.

So, as I see his departure as part of the move towards easing off on the power, in the hope that it involves the characters who are there a bit more.

Mon El - injured, but there's Ultra Boy.
Dawnstar, Timber Wolf and Tellus gone - Mwindaji & Otaki come in.

I see Harmonia Li as very much the Element Lad replacement

Riot or fire? Not with air powers. Rampaging foe? Not with that compacted Earth shield. Need squeaky voices? get an entertainer. I'm busy with Brainy's time travel experiments.




Looking at the UP politics once again leaving the galaxy without a Legion. Looking at the squabbling to rescue Brainy & Dreamy, at the death of RJ Brande. Looking at the desperate state of the galaxy. A state that Brainy has the technological brain to solve (see quotes of work underway in issue 23) tehn I think an appeal to the larger picture would work wonders.

The larger picture is why Gravity Boy quit the Academy. Bouncing Boy was telling kids who had just been thumped around that it was OK, because it would increase their chances of getting into the main team. Never mind their utter lack of training or that one of their number had died.

Power Boy's dream of getting into the team to do good, let alone his partner's reasons for joining, would be more than enough. Remember the disappointment on his face every time it's not worked out.



I think Mwindaji said that he had only been bested by Dawnstar. So, with her gone, he is the best available I guess. Less sure of Otaki, mainly due to lack of panel time.



I imagine it wouldn't be long before they wished they had a Plott driven teleporter around. But with Gates lost in time,the Legion having got by without one before and the creative team's desire to get back to longer journeys, that would seem to have been that.



I imagine it would be for a good arc or two, rather than anything permanent. There are any number of good internal tensions that could be used for sub plots there. Perhaps it's when things are getting bad that Vi & Ayla show up. Perhaps Brainy is smart enough up front to know he needs a leader in the field with Vi.

Element Lad's power, particularly as of the Great Darkness Saga, when he could waggle his fingers and change the atmospheric content of *planet Earth* to a tiny percent lead, to take out tens of thousands of rampaging Daxamites, can get a bit over the top. But even at a smaller scale, he's crazy tough. Persuader? Your Axe is surrounded by inertron. Sure, it can cut through inertron, but *you can't move it.* Tharok? Your metal arm and leg just melted. You'll have to get that replaced if you want to be super-villain-ing, son. Mordru? Wasn't there something about being buried in earth? Welcome to be buried in a bajillion tons of it...

A simple tweak to his backstory, to say that all Tromnians had *some* transmutation power, and that it was spiritual yadda-yadda, and when they all died, *all* of that transmutation power flowed to the last surviving Tromnian, making Jan ridonkulously powerful. Jump forward to 'the present day,' when Jan is overseeing a repopulation effort on his homeworld, with tens of thousands of Tromnians being born (from DNA gathered from the dead) and raised in the traditions of his homeworld. Trom, reborn! And now, his once planet-shaking levels of transmutation power are being distributed among the new Tromnian population, so that he'd still have awesome transmutation powers, but not *crazy* 'affect the whole atmosphere of a planet' awesome transmutation powers...

Changing his range from 'the entire planet' to 'thirty feet or so' and how much matter he could transmute from 'the atmosphere, all hojillion blippity umpteen space-tons of it' to 'a mass roughly equal to my own' would allow him to create inertron shackles on someone, or turn their clothing into a metal prison, or their weapons into gas and vapor, without being able to create a hundred ton inertron box around Validus.

On a team with Superboy regularly visiting, and Mon-El being Superboy 2.0, it got to where several Legionnaires (such as Imra, being shown telepathically broadcasting to an entire planet to coordinate an evacuation, or Shadow Lass, shown blotting out a star with her darkfields, or Sun Boy, able to generate the light of a star, to trick some migratory space beasties) got bumped up to planetary scale effects, just to 'keep up with the Super-Joneses.'

That's not as necessary, these days, IMO. Mon-El has never been quite as 'showy' as Kal-El, and the other Legionnaires seem much more able to shine in their own unique ways, around him.

Jones Kid - The Legionnaire who's always one step ahead of his colleagues.

Computo II: There's no programming...no minds in these things.
Dragonwing: Creepy. An army of shells. Soulless shells.

2 months later and they're on Trom trying to stop the determined, if insane, necromancer who turns out to be their former teammate.

Perhaps it's felt to be easier to shuffle Element Lad off to the side, rather than deal with explaining power switches and his Erin relationship.

I agree that Element Lad is crazy powerful. Then again, Superboy and Mon-El traditionally have been able to move celestial bodies around with their bare hands. I think there are clever ways to restrict Jan's usefulness without it seeming too plot devicey...sure, he could just change the composition of the atmosphere every time he comes across the LSV, but with them all coming from different worlds how does he know if removing enough oxygen to knock an Earth man out might not kill someone from Neptune (or conversely, have no effect at all)? He also doesn't need to be on every single Legion mission. Orion the Hunter can still be a life or death threat for Dream Girl and Shadow Lass when Element Lad's busy fighting mineral men on planet Mineral Man World.

It's the same argument I have with Dawnstar. I actually imagine that off-panel, she probably does do quite a lot of that busywork her powers would be perfect for but which doesn't necessarily make for compelling stories. Finding cruisers that are adrift, tracking down criminals, helping space archeologists find the missing space tomb of Space Cleopatra, etc...when I have seen her powers fail it has generally been because her target is in another dimension or something similar, so it doesn't seem overly contrived. I would actually like to see some throwaway scenes every now and then of Legionnaires using their powers to help out in non-combat ways....there used to be more of that stuff, which is something that made them stand out from other super teams. But I digress..

I have to admit, while the idea of classic Brainy forming his own hand-picked team is very interesting, I'll be happy if we never see postboot Brainy again. There's a fine line between snarky genius and arrogant thoroughly unlikeable person, and Levitz gleefully pole-vaulted over that line every chance he got since Legion of 3 Worlds ended. Then again, a lot of the Legionnaires became unlikeable versions of themselves so it's hardly something restricted to Brainy....

I think that it's the crazy powerful thing that has meant that Superboy and Mon-El have been pushed to one side. The Connor Kent version was nowhere near as powerful as the pre crisis one either.Probably for a similar reason.

So I can see the appeal of having a character whose powers have vaguely simialr dramatic effects, while not jumping up and down over Element Lad's history either.

Likewise, I don't think the status quo did Element Lad too many favours either. I liked his teaching role in the current run. I liked his quiet, contemplative role in previous versions. But he often seems last at the scene or taken down too quickly in battle.



I'd buy that! I did a review of her origin issue a few days ago. I was genuinely surprised at seeing her being effective across the full story. It seemed to make quite a change.

There's barely space for an actual plot these days, never mind throw away scenes She could have been handled a lot more effectively in the main plots she was part of. Special focus scenes/ issues would have been a bonus.

When I read the v6 & v7 Brainy, I'm probably thinking of the reflected glow of the 5YG Brainy. He's being obsessed. He's multi tasking like crazy. He is thinking ten steps ahead, and telling people about it.

But he's flawed. He blabs a secret to Duo Damsel and the others and she reminds him of his errors. You know that it may all fall down around him. The others need him and they know that deep down he has the best of intentions.

Look at issue 23. Everyone of his plans is to help other people. The others know that, and just try to keep him in check, before it gets out of hand.

In short, he's part of the group. He needs them and they need him.

Brainy with Harmonia? That's a problem. She has shown less constraint than he has.

I like the idea of Brainy trying to set up his own analogue of the Legion a lot, though would add Kent Shakespeare - as a former patient of Brainy's - into the mix too.

Yoikes! Sorry Set, I missed your reply. Thanks for your comments.



That is definitely going on. The characters are amalgamations with minor power tweaks of previous members. That said, there are other factors. Dawnstar being a Levitz creation, perhaps he had plot requirements for a similar character. I can certainly see that in the final issue. The Legion has always had someone with telepathic ability. It's also generally had any other character being replaced with a returning Saturn Girl, so perhaps that would have happened again too.

They do seem a lifeless. That's partly because they weren't starring in their own stories like Dawnstar or Wildfire did. We did get the "I'm second only to Dawnstar." and the "I've been trained by Big Cheese Braino from Titan." type things to justify their inclusion. Invisible "I just quaffed someone else's potion" Kid shuffles his feet invisibly in the background

They are described by other characters as mature, to make them stand apart form the criticism of the other new members being out of their depth.

But justification and maturity doesn't make them interesting. That takes some good writing and creativity. Mediocre starts for them, but time would have told.



From what I reading Legionnaires, she was the sparring partner to Chameleon Boy about how the group should be run. Smart and capable, solving a crisis in her first couple of panels and being made deputy leader.



It's great that different readers pick up opposite ideas. I saw a Power Boy who was gutted at getting rejected on both occasions "It's what we really want." while Gravity Boy looked to be fed up with the futility of it and wanted to get out there and actually make a difference. So, I'd have reversed those roles.

Although I doubt anyone could be as chipper as Polar Boy. Who was, as you point out, someone shaped his own opinions based on the constitution rather than what was going on around him (see endless Adventure comics for people being expelled for violating the constitution.



Yeah, Star Boy could have winked out to any universe at any time. Although they did indicate they found his body under the rubble, which puts a bit of a damper on that one. I was surprised they were as clear as that.

As for Sun Boy, the one I thought I would be reading was that the locals are symbiotically attached to their host. By ritual eating of Sun Boy, they are in fact imparting his consciousness into the host. In other words, the locals are acting to stop Tharok.

So Sun Boy becomes merged with the mind of the Promethean Giant. Basically, Sun Boy = Promethean fire concept. We spent an issue watching the thing's finger destroy the locals. We could have then seen it trace the sun boy logo on it's chest.



Next month in Legion! The coffee brand in the dispenser is changed! will it affect Dawny's Powers? Will she...have to leave the clubhouse?"

I think that's why Levitz was looking to bring in a powered down version, in Mwindaji who seems to rely on scent to a degree.

I popped up a review of Dawny's first appearance, and it pretty much agrees with everything you say there regarding inconsistency.

I play (and run) superhero RPGs, and also write superhero fic, so I tend to shy away from characters with powers that are too 'plot-wrecking.' Almost any superpower is going to affect the story. Even if it's something like Lightning Lad being able to shoot energy at someone, which, in the 31st century, any idiot with a blaster can do, you now have a situation where you can't just write 'the bad guy disarms them' because his 'blaster' is built into his body, and you'll need to come up with 'power dampening cuffs' or keep him unconscious or something. That's a minor thing, and the only concern is not to have that sort of thing happen *too* often, or else, why the hell even have someone on the team that can throw lightning, if you are constantly finding excuses for why he can't throw lightning in a given scenario (which is pretty much 95% of my problem with the show Heroes, where they spend multiple seasons coming up with excuse after excuse why Hiro or Peter couldn't use their powers to undo stuff or fix stuff in, like, 10 seconds, thus demonstrating, to me at least, that they didn't have any business writing for a show in which people had super-powers, since they worked so darn hard to prevent them from actually *using* their super-powers).

Characters like Raven, in the Teen Titans, are far more problematic than 'shoots Energy lad,' because she's got empathic powers, for which we need a specific excuse for why they don't work to detect, oh, pulling an example out of my butt, *a traitor infiltrating the team.* With Saturn Girl, some sort of psi-dampener or whatever could be used as an excuse, or Manchurian candidate stuff where even the infiltrator doesn't know that they are an infiltrator until they receive a code word or something, but with Raven, whose powers are even more squiffily defined than telepathy, and are mystical in nature, and with 20th century foes like Deathstroke who wouldn't necessarily have the first freaking clue how to counter them, it's more of an issue, and then she's *also* a teleporter, which has to be addressed for any travel scenario or storyline that involves getting out of somewhere (oh, Raven got bonked on the head and can't teleport, which is like, pretty much her *job,* so we have to fight our way out of the collapsing enemy base!). And then she's also a healer, and 'healer' (or, regeneration), in comic book lingo, means that people are going to get hurt more than they would on a team with no healer, so that we can see her healing. That's not drama, right there, that just makes the team with a healer look incompetent, compared to say, the Fantastic Four, which has been adventuring since the sixties without a healer and gotten by just fine! (Wolverine looks even worse, by comparison. He's a more competent fighter than, say, Cyclops, and yet he's taken fifty billion near fatal wounds, while Cyclops, with no defensive powers at all, just somehow avoids getting shot or stabbed all the time...)

Dawnstar's tracking power isn't quite as terrible, from a storytelling standpoint, as Raven's raft of inconvenient powers, but it still has that Star Trek problem of 'we have to find a reason why the transporter isn't working, *yet again,* so that the drama of the episode doesn't end 10 seconds into the show when things go south and Kirk just says, "yeah, beam us out of here, we can nuke them from orbit..."'

Her ability to find anything, anywhere, is worse than 'too powerful,' it's actually kind of useless. Either it works, and there's no story, or it doesn't work, so that we can actually have a story, in which case, why is she on the team again? If she had some sort of explicit limits (have to have seen or touched the object she's tracking), she'd *still* be crazy good, as any villain the team has ever beaten, she'd be able to find *forever,* no matter where they tried to hide.

"Takron-Galtos break out! A hundred villains fled in different directions!" "Whatever. He's over there, she's over here, they stuck together and are on Rimbor, he's still in his cell, that's kind of odd... Are you writing this down? I'm not going to repeat myself, I've got a mani/pedi in 10 minutes..."

That said, I see it as a kind of challenge. There are ways to get around her power, and, unlike Sensor Girl, who smartened up and concealed the true nature of her powers from her foes, Dawnstar literally advertises her powers (and I do mean literally, she sold her services for a time before joining the team!), and this is a future in which people can store junk in extradimensional spaces, or hide out on Lythyl. Dawnstar may be ridiculously good at finding stuff *in this universe,* but it's not actually hard to hide in another universe (even if it's just a storage tesseract) in the future.

And then there's the question of what, exactly, about a person (or object) she is tracking. Some sort of quantum signature? If so, can that quantum signature be masked, by a force field, or altered, possibly with unforeseen side-effects on the too-clever-by-half crook who thought that he was going to hide himself and / or his ill-gotten booty from Dawnstar, and instead swapped himself with a doppleganger from an alternate universe (or just terribly mutated himself, become 'unrecognizable' to more than just Dawny's tracking power...).

Which leads again to 'why is she on the team, if her 'infallible tracking powers' aren't really working?'

Ugh. Dawnstar hurts my brain.

"Dawnstar's a mutant... a freak who can hunt and track anything anywhere...even across a galaxy." - Wildfire.

The answer to all those questions of "How did the heroes manage to track down so and so?" She has the power to keep the plot centred firmly on the action.

Cue endless plots of villains shifting planets out of our universe and crises across multiverses. Rumour has it that the Anti Monitor began the crisis because someone was about to ask Dawnstar where he was.

A character that can lead the team to the rough area, or solar system saves on a lot of detective work panels (that they never show anyway). From there, the hunt could begin. Much better than knowing exactly where the villains hideout is.

Ever since I remembered about this thread a few weeks ago during the discussion sparked by DC's most recent Writer Most Likely To Write the Legion Relaunch tease, I've been ruminating on the whole idea of a continuation of the Retroboot...

I won't mince words -- I hate the way that the Retroboot was executed by Levitz; I hate the way it was set up by Johns even more. At the same time, I can no longer deny recognizing three important factors:

1) Continuing the Retroboot would eliminate the need for the kind of Explanatory Info-Dump/Intro-Dump which would immediately put off thousands of readers -- readers that the Legion *needs* as it tentatively heads for the start of its seventh (!) decade in a do-or-die situation. If the Legion is going to sell beyond its 7,500 or so most loyal followers (an educated guess), then it's going to have to be as instantly accessible as possible. No two ways about it.

2) We've already seen, here at Legion World, that it could conceivably work if done right. And for that, we have Legion World's own Harbinger to thank:

LEGION WORLDS ONE: https://www.legionworld.net/forums/u...;Main=18576&Number=768907#Post768907

LEGION WORLDS TWO: https://www.legionworld.net/forums/u...;Main=19168&Number=809500#Post809500

LEGION WORLDS THREE: https://www.legionworld.net/forums/u...;Main=19478&Number=839331#Post839331

LEGION WORLDS FOUR (WORK IN PROGRESS): https://www.legionworld.net/forums/u...;Main=19789&Number=873564#Post873564

Through her bravery in tackling the troublesome, intimidating-for-many (myself included) Retroboot head-on, her prolific industriousness, and her loving, sincere dedication to the Legion, she deserves credit for opening my mind and showing me (and possibly others who haven't yet stood up and been counted) the way. And speaking of credit where it's due...

3) Thoth Lad, and this very thread he started on the heels of the Retroboot's cancellation, may have provided the key to unlocking a new lease on life for the Legion. For all we know, DC writers, editors, and executives may very well be lurking at Legion World and taking our posts into consideration (which would be wholly in keeping with the Legion's tradition, dating back to the prime of the Weisinger Era, of being largely driven by the input of Legion fandom.)

My two cents (or, given the way I ramble, 20 cents):

Brainiac 5 as leader is the answer. Recall that, back in early 1989, with the launch of the TMK Legion a few months away, there debuted a book spotlighting the L.E.G.I.O.N., a modern-day Legion prototype team, led by Brainy's Machiavellian ancestor, Vril Dox a.k.a. Brainiac 2. Initially plotted by Keith Giffen, the book IMHO truly blossomed at the start of its second year, when its other two founding creators, scripter Alan Grant & penciler Barry Kitson, took over the plotting. At its peak (issues 14-31 and Annuals 1 & 2, IMO), and sporadically after that for the rest of its 70-issue run, L.E.G.I.O.N. was, at the time, a tonic for readers like me who liked the idea of the Legion, but not what TMK were doing with it. L.E.G.I.O.N. was twisted and violent, driven by a combustible mixture of moral and ethical viewpoints, all funneled and filtered through their intense, scary, yet ultimately brilliant leader's vision of galactic justice. At the same time, the art was generally clean and conventionally attractive, the stories were complex yet traditionally straightforward in their presentation, and the book's darkness was leavened by a sense of humor which clicked with me the way TMK's sense of humor never did. Today, huge chunks of that run hold up remarkably well (and let's please not even get into its awful pseudo-continuations, R.E.B.E.L.S. Volume 1 and Volume 2. Consider them deservedly wrecked by the Convergence, I say.)

And so a Brainiac 5-led 31st Century Legion emerges, in my view, as one of the two most viable alternatives. The other would be a Postboot-flavored relaunch (not necessarily a direct continuation of the Postboot, much as I've come to love that era overall), gleefully embracing the Archie-Characters-in-Space comparisons which began as a put-down but which I think has its positive connotations as well. I'd personally prefer the Archie approach, as I think it stands a better chance of expanding the Legion fanbase far beyond the long-timers and the science fiction/science fantasy crowd. But this thread *is* about the Brainiac 5-as-leader approach, so let's stick with that.

Here's Thoth's set-up for the concept:



And now, my counterpoints to Thoth's subsequent points:



Of this bunch, I'd definitely have Querl (of course; and have him finally confront all of his past failures and the taint of the Omega incident on his already-questionable legacy), Brek (obsessed with trying to recapture the idealism of his not-too-distant youth), and...Harmonia (this really surprised me, but I feel that Harbinger's stories have shown us ways that this troublesome character might work. Plus, as has been noted at more than one point in this thread, she's a viable replacement for Jan -- more on that shortly...)

Not Jacques, though -- I still feel that, when he's stripped of any lingering pangs of Political Correctness, along with the nostalgia from TMK fans for his portrayal during that era, he's really an empty construct, an ethnic Frankenstein's Monster put together from spare parts discarded by Marvel as Chris Claremont's multi-racial X-Men and New Mutants teams were coalescing. Nor Grava -- like, omigawd, gag me with a spoon, starshine!!



Bring 'em back to the 31st Century, I say. Quite possibly leaving behind Troy and Yera in the 21st Century, just so there can be some kind of bloody point to the whole joyless Lost in Time joyride. What do either of them have to come back for?

Troy's options, in my view, would either be remaining a neglected, underused Legionnaire or finding a way back to his isolationist homeworld, and why would he even want to do the latter, having been relatively enlightened by his stint with the Legion? Also, he'd make a strong, and much-needed impression in these suffocatingly racist times we live in today; he might do some things heavy-handedly, but he's only human after all.

As for Yera, I can't say I'm happy with Levitz's subplot of her and Gim as a sort of DC version of Mark Millar's take on Jan & Hank, but if we have to run with what we've got, have her try to seek happiness in another time, another place, even if her passion for acting might end up turning her into a Hollywood casualty. Better yet, she almost becomes a Hollywood casualty, but pulls herself back from the brink.

Now, the ones who do return -- pick up Brin's subplot with Lythyl and give him an epically exotic adventure, accompanied by Dawnstar, who tells Drake she needs to rethink her life, making Drake mad, and I never love Drake more than when he's mad; Ganglios could conceivably flirt with the Dark Circle, only to realize in the end what a lot of crap they're selling, and, besides, the Legion needs a telekinetic; Gates could start a bromance with Tenzil (see below), and become the Bernie Sanders of 31st Century United Planets politics.



Bring back Blok for sure -- it would provide a link with the L.E.G.I.O.N.'s Dryad member, Strata, and Blok's fustercluck of an origin, along with the way overdue need for confronting that swept-under-the-carpet meanstreak shadow-self lurking within him, always threatening to corrupt his gentle soul. And have Glorith help Mysa come to terms with what she's become and resist the temptation to turn evil -- nice role reversal there, non?



I move to keep Tinya offstage for a good long while, with the goal of bringing her back down the line in a spectacular fashion. And how many times can Quislet escape from persecution in Teall, only to return there, and then escape again, and so on? Have the newly-returned-to-the-31st-Century Wildfire go into Teall, and rescue Quislet once and for all, but not before Wildfire showing the persecutors that from now, if they ever threaten Quislet again, there will be hell to pay. Go, go, go!!



Gim: Good riddance, and get some effin' anger-management therapy!

Lar: Just kill him already! Daxamites are a dime-a-dozen, so just bring in a new one. Hell, I'd even tolerate some kind of iteration of Laurel!!

Jo: Is he playing dumb or is he really as dumb as he acts? I DON'T CARE!! So send him off on a long, long Tinya-Quest, and if he survives, then make some bloody sense of his personality and his backstory already!

Tenzil: Now, him, the Legion could use. All sorts of unexplored potential there, what with his political connections and his sad clown persona begging to be dug into deeper (especially as it relates to his eating the Miracle Machine and its swept-under-the-carpet repercussions.)

Jan: Have him make a fresh start as a teacher, and don't ever bring him back to the team. As for Preboot Erin, I think hir Preboot iteration is damaged goods, and I suspect Levitz feels the same way, which is why we never saw hir on-panel in the Retroboot.

Nura: I love 'er, but I can't deny that I feel her 15 minutes of Legion stardom have come and gone. Write her out permanently, just like with Jan.

Val & Projectra: Double my displeasure! Keep him as an illusion of hers. And while there might be some potential in portraying her as a Queen Gone Mad, and turning her into a villainess (the legacy of her judge & jury killing of NK and of her mercy killing of Sarya?), I also think that if it's not done right, it could turn out way too fan-wanky.

Tasmia: Once Lar is well and truly dead, she needs to move on. She also needs to tell the tradition-minded Talokians who would want to turn her into a sexless recluse to go eff themselves, and search for an alternative way of coping, which would lead her back in a roundabout way to the Legion.



I don't like Preboot Luornu. Next!

I do love Chuck.

They compliment each other, when all is said and done. Maybe even *too well* for any real kind of drama that wouldn't make either of them come off badly (Lu's Cheatin' Heart via TMK, anyone?) Have them go back to exploring the galaxy.



Yeah, give them their shot. I don't know them well, if at all, from having just leafed through the Retroboot trades and read the posts about them in this thread, so I'm going on pure intuition.



Reep: Yes. Making him the Legion's new sponsor has untold dramatic potential.

Salu & Ayla: I'd want to see her finally admit to herself that she's been working the whole butchy 'n hostile archetype/stereotype *way too hard.* Maybe Ayla, who knows a thing or two about gender-fluidity and sexual fluidity, could help her come around. This would allow for more character depth for both of them, as well as allow Ayla to reclaim the *edge* that she lost after Salu became the volatile one and Ayla receded into a passivity that never suited her.



Imra & Garth: In my humble opinion, it is Imra, not Rokk, who is the *true* cornerstone of the Legion (she did single-handedly save the galaxy from Universo, y'know...) I'd love to see her and Querl butt heads like never before (not unlike Vril and Lyrissa in the first year-and-a-half of L.E.G.I.O.N., come to think of it...) Garth, like many ex-hotheads who've worked all the angst and anger out of their system as they've gotten older, would only be glad to play house-husband in my view. Of course, there could and should be at least some marital tensions...

Rokk & Lydda: Now, unlike Gim & Yera, this gruesome twosome, IMHO, deserves no better than to become DC's version of Mark Millar's take on Marvel's Hank & Jan. But keep the carnage mostly off-panel, at least until they finally turn each other into worm-food and we have the Legion give a wake for them, where it emerges that they were both doomed from the start. This would also finally resolve that loose end from the Levitz/Giffen Era where Rokk stops himself from killing the terrorists, but flashes that creepy grin which would indicate that he'd just passed the point of no return...



Tel & Jeddiah, yes. And bring back Phil Jimenez for a mini-series or one-shot focusing on his two pet characters and all the stuff he never got to explore with them.

Jenni, sure. Anything to keep her away from the mess that the Flash Legacy had turned into last time I checked in.

Danielle, have her spawn the Retroboot version of Robotica. Because, really, I can't conceive of any other road for her.



My dream team:

Dox (leader), Ardeen (Number One), Bannin, Li, Londo, Burroughs, Dawnstar, Ganglios, Mr'asz, Wazzo (indefitely MIA), Quislet, Blok, Nal M., Glorith II, Nah (indefinitely MIA), Kem, Mallor, Pai, Jamik, Daggle (team sponsor, with little or no field activity), Digby, Ranzz A., Vole, Rikane, Ognats, and (though her ultimate alliance is uncertain) Foccart D.

Hmmm...I'm currently working on a twisted love triangle between two Silver Age favorites and a Vertigo icon ATM, but once that's done, hmmm...



Stay tuned.

Thanks very much for your thoughts Fickles. It's always appreciated.

Since you reminded me of the thread a few weeks ago, I've been giving it a little thought too.

There's a reason I've never participated a great deal in in Bits section of the site. And that's because I've got 100 little issue plots sitting around following on from the first posts in this thread.

The idea, just after this thread started, was that I'd type them up, post them to get them out of my system and then have a good read through everyone else's.

So, I think I'll dig them all out, and start posting them up. I imagine that the first year are fairly detailed, with plot/ sub plot summaries going on from there.

They do follow narratively from the end of the Levitz run, so there's a bit of that baggage to get clear of. I know I've certainly got a few side posts on the Legion generally to put up in relation to them.

Reading your post I see a few things that I know are in there. There are others that just take *ages* to get around to being included. Even using Levitz paradigms, there's only so many subplots you can squeeze in. A lot I've gone in different directions as you'd expect.

Specifically from your post, it's interesting that you mention cornerstones of the Legion. Looking at the posts, it's easy to get caught up in the roll call of who's on the team. But in parallel to that, the plots for those cornerstones develop too, and are just as pivotal.

The final issue hinted at a Brainy's Legion, and it's the premise for this thread. You've mentioned Vril Dox, and that's a great example of some of the skills that Querl may not have the same aptitude in.

Removing Brainy's plot omnipotence, or at least showing the areas where he's not perfect (without trampling on anyone) allows the other characters to shine a bit brighter as well as getting Brainy to confront his issues, as you pointed out.

So, it's Tasmia on page one and then we're off to Weber's World...

You're very welcome, Thoth. And thank *you* for being so welcoming of diverse opinions on the Legion, even the ones that are 180 degrees from your own.



YAY! Sharing is caring, as the saying goes! Can't wait to see them.



This reminds me of something I opined on a while ago, in the Legion of the Damned 100-Page Special thread. A story as crowded and complex as that of the Legion would work best in the European format, as a collection of rather lengthy (anywhere from 64 to 96 pages, I guess) graphic novels, each one focusing on a different plot thread, with periodic convergences of all the longest-running plot threads.

If done right, this could fulfill the potential of the Earth One concept. Unfortunately, the last couple Earth One graphic novels I read, Teen Titans Volume 2 and Wonder Woman Volume 1, were atrocious (though it took awhile for the awfulness of WWv1 to sink in.)

There's also the danger of the approach being handled in a similar fashion to my bete noire, J***than H***man. As in, plot threads that take effin' forever to be resolved, endless sidebar stories just when the main story finally seems to be awakening from its turgid stupor, and, of course, let's have eleven epilogues (HONK!) Make that twelve epilogues!*

But I'm *still* optimistic it could be made to work!!



Glad to see we're of like minds on so many key factors of this Retroboot Revival concept. (I'd like to call it...RETROBOOT REDUX!!)



Ha ha ha ha! AWL-RIGHT!








*J'adore the Marx Brothers!! I don't care that they're from my great-grandparents generation, or that Harpo's slobbering-dog woman-chasing is creepy in hindsight. At their best they were effin' hilarious! Especially Groucho! (Six degrees: Groucho Marx is one-time Legion writer Roger Stern's favorite comedian.)

It's the opinions of others I'm more interested in. I already *know* mine at the time of posting, so that's old news to me.



I can guarantee you a European approach by default The lengths sound similar to the wider arcs too.

From what I remember, there's no Hickman concept with cardboard people waiting an age for resolution.

I came across my Levitz paradigm sheet earlier on, so I *know* I used that for at least a year's worth of stuff.



Yeah, but it's only page one she's on Thanks to being tied in with Coma Kid (again) at the end of the Levitz run, it takes a while for Tasmia, but it'll get there.

Ah, OK. Fair enough, I'll be patient.

In the interim, I'm 99.99 percent sure you saw this coming a mile away...

...wait for it...

Mon-El in a coma, I know, I know, it's serious

After landing on the Hickman books, my jumper from the Kill this Thread was going to finish on "Heaven knows I'm miserable Now" but I changed it.

Yet another coincidence. It's a mystery, but I suspect Big Numbers will be involved.

LOL

What about the Subs, or some of the Subs at some point? The recent Conway story in which Brainy directed them against the Assassins was reinforced by Johns' tale in which Brainy used them against the Justice League. They could be his personal fan-club/strike team - they'd be eager for the action and he could possibly manage their powers and abilities more effectively than they could themselves (or Polar Boy - they'd have more respect for B5 than Brek).

Glad you mentioned the Subs, FC. Thanks for the reminder.

Infectious Lass - Lost in the timestream after Earth Man and his goons tossed her into it. Hmmm...of course, she'd have to be rescued...but who would get that mission? Tenzil? With loyal Girl Friday Calorie Queen in tow? I'd like to think that would all doubtlessly make our late, beloved Legion Worlder MLLASH jump for joy up in heaven. Oh, and I almost forgot -- Tenzil's new "comrade" Gates would go along, too.

Chlorophyll Kid - A plant elemental in the making? Could Harmonia be a catalyst?

Stone Boy - An Earth elemental in the making? Harmonia again?

Fire Lad - A fire elemental in the making? Harmonia yet again?

(And as long as I'm running with this possible elementals thread...even though Nightwind and Lamprey are not Subs, they did recently graduate from the now-defunct Legion Academy, so...Berta a wind elemental and Tayla a water elemental? Perhaps Tayla revealed as heiress to Atlantis, destined to rise again in the 31st Century?)

Color Kid - Blinded by Earth Man. Gives what remains of his powers to Rainbow Girl, as he cannot stand the hurt of never again being able to see the results of using said powers. And speaking of Dori...

Rainbow Girl - We've already seen that mixing the Lantern mythos with the Legion can lead to disaster. OTOH, a certain 6-year-old fanfic in the Bits forum may just have proved it could work, if I do say so myself. Wait! I've got it. On top of Ulu's powers, Dori also gets the Ion powers from Sodam Yat after he is finally put out of his misery (which relieves readers of *their* misery, knowing they'll never have to suffer Yat's incessant yakking anymore.) And in a nod to one of the rejected stories that the late, great Dave Cockrum proposed back in the 70s, Dori's new power-set allows her to see into a dimension hidden to all but the most powerful wielders of the...uh...Power Spectrum? Anyhow, it would sorta be the Lantern version of the Parliament of Trees from Swamp Thing (again with the Swamp Thing/Elemental tie-ins! But, then again, why not?) And Dori encounters none other than the disembodied consciousness of Sarya (kept on a tight leash by the...uh...Parliament of Light (?), who covets not only a return to sentience, but also sees in Dori more potential power than she ever had as the Emerald Empress, and Sarya wants it all!! Will Dori succumb to temptation leading to possession by Sarya? And is all this...stuff...I've come up with potential gold or utter fan-wank??

All kidding aside, I think at the very least we've got some real diamonds in the rough here.

Thanks again, FC.

Wow, that's a lot of Rainbow Girl love. I like the idea that any expansion to her powerset will come with it's own downside and new threats and challenges.

My own funky fanwank with Dori revolves around how her power keeps changing, from being able to create a red aura of heat and fire, a blue aura of cold and ice, a yellow aura of light or a green aura of kryptonite radiation, in one appearance, to emotion control in another appearance, to green lantern powers, in her latest appearance. In my head, she's quantum-entangled with six other rainbow girls, in six alternate universes, all of whom have different 'rainbow' related powers (one is a strong, tough rainbow-bridge-riding descendent of the Greek goddess Iris, another wields a 'rainbow' that shoots arrows of lightning, thunder, wind, fog/clouds, rain, etc), and she not only switches between these seven different persons uncontrollably, but *no one else notices* (with possible exceptions like Dream Girl, whose precognitive powers immunize her to alternate timeline stuff in some way).

Dori herself is aware that her powers (and history) may or may not change to an extent when she wakes up, and has grown used to nobody else remembering that yesterday she was flying around on a rainbow bridge in sandals and a toga, or that it's odd that today she's an Aurakle, like the Outsider Halo.

Thank you, Set.

I'm impressed with your ideas for Rainbow Girl. Should you decide to make a fan fiction of them, I'd like to offer the suggestion that the most natural team-up for your interpretation of Dori would be none other than Retroboot Luornu/Duplicate Damsel. Heck, make it a DC/Marvel crossover and turn it into a bizarre love triangle with Dori, Jamie Madrox, and Lu.

Cast of thousands, indeed!!

I just thought of another story possibility, as a sidebar to the search for Infectious Lass...the search is interrupted when the group of Legionnaires exploring the timestream encounters none other than Douglas Nolan, whose presence in the alternate timeline he was sent to at the end of LSH 300 didn't quite take, and now he's adrift again, with possible consequences for the entire time-space continuum. So, despite some strong disagreement among the group, the "yeas" outweigh the "nays" after it's proposed that they should at least see if maybe he belongs in the prime timeline after all. What this all has been leading to in my mind is that Douglas could be the final piece of the puzzle in Harmonia's quest to create new elementals to form the Wu Xing cycle -- Douglas would be the metal elemental.

I've requested library copies of all the trades from the final phase of the Retroboot, for research purposes.

It'll probably be rough going, but I'm prepared for it. I've got the Pepto-Bismol handy.

And, at the very least, it'll be nice to see how Kevin Maguire draws a semi-traditional-looking Legion in the final issue.

Chinese tradition has five elements, earth, fire, water, metal and wood.

Harmonia, on the other hand, has been shown using air powers, which, IMO, is just a brain-fart on the part of Levitz, who is generally better at researching such things.

So you can go in several directions;

Western - Air (Nightwind), Earth (Stone Boy, Blok), Fire (Fire Lad, Sun Boy, whoever), Water (Lamprey)

Chinese - Fire, Earth, Water, Metal (Ferro), Wood (Chlorophyll Kid?)

Japanese - Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Void (Night Girl? Shadow Lass?)

Or any combination of the above, as it's been 1000 years, and one of the 'traditional' models might have expanded. (And / or be totally irrelevant to the 'natural' model, which manifestly includes a plant elemental of 'The Green' and an animal elemental of 'The Red!')

That's the silver lining of something inconsistent like Harmonia's elemental schtick, is that you can use it to justify using whatever you want.

Aha. Much appreciated, Set. I'll go with the Chinese Elements:

FIRE: Staq Malven (Fire Lad)

EARTH: Dag Wentim (Stone Boy)

METAL: Douglas Nolan (Ferro II)

WOOD: Ral Benem (Chlorophyll Kid)

WATER: Tayla Skott (Lamprey)

I figure Tayla's upgrade to not only an Elemental, but also the heiress apparent to Atlantis, will make her BFF, Berta Haris/Nightwind, who has shown pretentions to a higher status before, quite jealous. And, of course, their friendship will survive in the long run, but the fun is going to be all in the drama during the voyage towards renewing their friendship.

I'm also considering the possibility of giving their mentor, Harmonia, a nemesis. The first idea that went off in my head was that she has an evil sister named Pandemonia.

Too on-the-nose?

Disso Nancy.

I don't get it.

Dissonance, I believe, as another sister for Harmonia.

Eris, the Greek goddess of Discord and Strife (and bestower of the golden apple entitled 'for the fairest' that ended up starting the Trojan War and destroying a nation), daughter of Ares (and sister to Phobos and Deimos, gods of fear and terror), sounds like the sort of person who would consider Harmonia Li, and her so-called 'Planet of the Wise,' to be practically begging for the sort of 'playful pranks' that lead to conflict and misery.

An evil version of Harmonia, Discordia Li, perhaps, might have elemental *uncontrol* powers. Her presence causes tremors and violent windstorms and choppy seas and other weather disruptions, and she's a walking pocket of entropy, causing things to fall apart around her, including directed energy attacks against her. (A laser beam shot at her would decohere into a flash of discordant multicolored light, dazzling, but harmless, for instance. A bullet would take on a random trajectory and veer off, as laws of controlled linear motion take a vacation.) She couldn't control the effect enough to shoot a blast of bad weather at you, since that sort of control is the antithesis of what she does, but she could focus her entropic effect at you directly, and cause your body to spasm and suffer from vertigo and disorientation, adding her own special touch of chaos to the orderly systems of your body.

Thank you, FC and Set.

Discordia sounds good.

OR we could do like Marvel's Frost Clan mutant dynasty and have THREE sisters:

Harmonia, Pandemonia, and Discordia.

I hope Thoth won't be too upset about me once again getting way ahead of him, but I've got my first Retroboot Redux story-arc plotted, cast, outlined, and ready to go!!

I've even got a title:

As per usual for me, the story has already gotten a re-thinking and a new title:



That said, I do have a new rule:

I will not start doing the actual writing of a story until I've got a final, incontestable plot with a beginning, middle, and end, nailed down.

BEHOLD!!

A NEW BEGINNING

Behold!


Another New Beginning!

Retroboot Legion? That's so last week!

"Those 70s Titans" is the latest, greatest hype timeless exercise in loving homage to yesteryear.



See the Titans forum for details (yes, I am one of the Titans forum moderators -- AND?)

Bah! I have my Pulsar Stargrave disco pants! Beware '70's Titans thread!

ROTFLMAO



Who needs disco pants when we've got gorgeous half-dressed, long-haired men like the look Golden Eagle had in the late 70s? All's fair in love (for an idealized past) and war!

(We really should continue this discussion in the Titans forum. No, not because I'm a moderator there, but because we dare not risk the wrath of...On-Topic Angel!)