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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800511 01/31/14 09:10 AM
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That's exactly what Alan Davis did to her in Superboy's Legion. Gave her light powers. Not anti-gravity.

Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800559 01/31/14 09:18 PM
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Ayla's power was treated with awesome respect in the threeboot!

Outside of the old Adventure comics when everyone got a chance to showcase their powers if they were featured in a story, I really honestly can't think of a time classic Ayla did a single useful thing with her anti-gravity powers. Oh actually, I lie...when Computo possessed Danielle Foccart and took over the headquarters she levitated Jo and Tinya out of danger but that really bugged me at the time because she was moving them as if she had telekinesis. Going back to the lightning powers was the best thing that could have happened to her, I think a lot of old-school Legion writers never had the interest and/or the imagination to do anything with her as Light Lass.

Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800561 01/31/14 09:25 PM
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I vaguely recall a 'girls night out' issue where Ayla and two others run into some crooks while visiting a restaurant or night club or something, and Ayla sends one of the thugs into the ceiling, and then back to the ground, and then back to the ceiling, and basically dribbles him like a basketball.

And that's pretty much it. smile

While her powers were potentially awesome, I do think that writers have an easier time working around her lightning powers, and I'd rather have her with a powerset that the writers are comfortable with. In a team as big as the Legion, characters with powersets that the writers don't feel like dealing with, end up getting the Chemical King / Tyroc treatment and never seen again...



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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800564 01/31/14 10:21 PM
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Yeah, "blasts stuff with lightning" requires a lot less thought on the writers' part than the Light Lass powers.

If her abilities really involve "anti-gravity/dark energy/theoretical type stuff that drives the expansion of the universe" as opposed to just "cancels gravity" then that puts her powers on a whole new level. For one thing, it makes her and Thom's powers act together in interesting ways. If she makes massive bodies repel each other, then he might actually increase the effectiveness of her abilities by making objects more massive.

Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800567 02/01/14 02:51 AM
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That's a very neat thought, EDE. More mass would logically lead to more gravitational pull, making Ayla and Thom's powers (assuming one affects mass, and the other gravity) synergize interestingly. I love anything that can make members of a team capable of feats that they couldn't achieve individually, as it really helps to show off both teamwork, and character, that they are willing to develop tactics that require pooling their abilities to pull off, and have thought enough about how their abilities work to even conceive of such stunts.

(That said, both have been portrayed someone inconsistently. Ayla's powers were to 'make things super-light' up until they went away, IIRC, until the Threeboot, when she flat out manipulated gravity, and Thom's powers were to 'draw mass from the stars to make things super-heavy,' until, IIRC, the Threeboot, and the Justice Society visit, when 'classic Thom' was also was re-envisioned as a gravity manipulator.)

I wonder if 'gives mass to things' Thom could shut down a Bgtzln villain cold, by adding back mass to them and causing them to become solid and tangible, no matter how hard they tried to phase?

If Ayla's power had ever been defined as subtracting mass from something (the opposite of Thom's original 'adding mass to targets'), she might also have been able to gradually 'phase' people, making them not only super-light, but also super-vulnerable, with even durable people like Blok becoming wispy and fragile, before becoming completely intangible. (Or perhaps even shrinking as their mass decreased!) Subtracting mass from a bulkhead, she might be able to make it as weak as tissue paper, and tear her way right through it with her bare hands (and giving someone who has no idea what she's doing the notion that she has incredible super-strength!).

But that's a pretty different sort of power than anything she was ever shown using...



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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800735 02/02/14 08:11 AM
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Garth, Ayla, and Mekt seem to be living Telsa coils.

As everyone knows who saw The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Nicholas Cage, the "thunder" from Tesla coils can be "tuned" to create music.

So after the Legion dissolves, maybe Lightning Lad, Lightning Lass, Lightning Lord and Storm Boy go off and form a band?



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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800746 02/02/14 08:39 AM
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A cover of OMD's Tesla Girls being their first single


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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Set #800761 02/02/14 11:54 AM
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Originally Posted by Set
Thom's powers were to 'draw mass from the stars to make things super-heavy,' until, IIRC, the Threeboot, and the Justice Society visit, when 'classic Thom' was also was re-envisioned as a gravity manipulator.)

DnA, from Legion Worlds onward, always referred to Thom's powers as gravity-related. He even started showing *reduced* gravity powers in the Robotica arc (when he buffered Warworld's effect on the Earth when they brought it over) & TL #19.


My views are my own and do not reflect those of everyone else... and I wouldn't have it any other way.

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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #800825 02/03/14 01:35 AM
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The term they used in Legion Worlds 4 was "portable black hole generator". They also showed him repelling or lifting objects several times - in LW 4 itself, he used several Robotican drones as projectiles and shot them out in all directions around him. The scene Reboot mentions in TL 19 was probably him lifting a heavy weight above his head. In issue 33 (? the 2nd part of the Singularity story) he also lifts Singularity's lead ship.

Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #801544 02/15/14 04:29 PM
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The Ayla Postcard

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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #803663 03/23/14 05:59 AM
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This great Ayla pic was on our Onmicom. It's by Emiliano Urich


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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #803676 03/23/14 10:15 AM
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That was one of her better costumes. It would have been better with a different color scheme (maybe the Shazam colors?) IMHO.

On a side note when she first got her gravity powers the very first thing she did was lift the team's whole clubhouse up. Her power wasn't depicted as being very useful after that for the most part though. While I liked the idea of gravity nullifying powers her getting the lightning powers back made her the only female on the team with non-defensive abilities at the time.

Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #803697 03/23/14 05:28 PM
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I like how the side of her face away from the lightning is shaded.

Sometimes artists seem to forget that fire and lightning powers generate shadows, as they (I assume) draw the faces and bodies before adding in the special effects, and then don't remember to shade the bodies and faces after putting a big honking light-source on their fist...

Nice healthy build on her there, too. Not all wasp-waisted or unrealistically buxom.



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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #845420 03/25/15 07:56 PM
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I've been thinking a lot about Ayla lately, having recently re-read Baxter #6.

It used to be a favorite issue of mine, but it doesn't hold up that well. Levitz doesn't dig deep enough into Ayla as a character the way he did with some of the other Legionnaires. The whole gender-bender thing is brusquely dismissed as "silly", but I think it's fertile soil, along with her bisexuality. I'd like to write a series of "Untold Ayla Stories" fanfics, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make sense of whatever it was that happened between her and Pol. Another challenge for me would be that I despise the chip-on-the-shoulder version of her lover Vi.

Oh, and Levitz claiming that he never consciously intended for Ayla and Vi to become a lesbian couple? YEAH, RIGHT! *smirk*


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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #919106 12/24/16 08:33 AM
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[Linked Image]

Levitz & Lightle show Ayla as a powerhouse in the team!


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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #919369 12/27/16 08:40 PM
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And in the "complaint" department...

Ayla remains the ONLY major Legionnaire not to have a SINGLE HeroCLix figure made frown , despite there being ones for lesser characters such as Earthman, Chameleon Girl, etc, and despite several other characters (such as her brother Garth) having 3 or more figures.

travesty!


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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
WangLung #919385 12/28/16 07:03 AM
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Originally Posted by WangLung
Threeboot had it's faults but that was not one of them. She was kick ass in that. Brainy, I felt, thought she and Star Boy were two of the most powerful on the team because they both controlled gravity. One of the most powerful things in the universe.


nod Her power set & personality were some of Waid's best work there, I think. Even when Brainy contrasted her power scale with what he perceived as her failure of intelligence, he too came across as more interesting than usual. (Though still a major jerk, of course. tongue )

I don't remember the writer, alas. But I remember a fanfic where cartoon Ayla became Light Lass after her return from imprisonment as a living cloud of energy. In that reality, Star Boy pretty much has both his traditional powers, plus the ones shown by Threeboot Ayla. So in the fanfic, cartoon Dream Girl teams up with Star Boy & "gifts" Ayla with anti-grav powers so she can join the Legion alongside her brother.

I actually think the episode in the cartoon where Ayla is reunited with Garth & Mekt is the best work of the second season. The streamlining & re-imagining of their story is actually quite moving. Even Superman X doesn't get in the way, as he usually did that year.


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Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #919386 12/28/16 07:06 AM
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Also, as follow-up to Fanfic Lass' earlier points, if anything I remember really disliking Ayla's post-GD attitude back in the day: much more so than Violet's. I remember thinking that a broken heart doesn't really justify being so harsh to everyone in the same way having your identity stolen and your person assaulted by terrorists would.

But I got over that eventually. Grumpy Ayla was still more interesting than the kvetchy Timber Wolf hanger-on, at least.


Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on DeviantArt! Drop by and tell me that I sent you. *updated often!*
Re: The Ayla Appreciation Thread
Power Boy #922046 02/14/17 02:37 PM
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Hey, fellow Ayla fans,

Noticed lately that since she adopted a lower-maintenance, more sensible 'do off-screen after becoming a mom with a daughter, Scarlett Johnansson has begun to look a LOT like a grown-up Ayla?

That, I stress, is a GOOD thing.

click to enlarge

[Linked Image]


Read LEGIONS OF 7 WORLDS in the Bits forum:

Retroboot (Earth-7.5) Arc 1 (COMPLETED)

Retroboot (Earth-7.5) Arc 2 (WORK IN PROGRESS)

"Don't look for role models, girls, BE the role model."

- Legion World member HARBINGER
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