Jab’s Builds! (Beaker! Sam Eagle! Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef!)

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Ken
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

Post by Ken »

Now we know the real reason Brainiac 5 kept that force field belt handy.



And a video about Wildfire... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3OnSQc48s
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

Post by greycrusader »

Reading the updated Legion builds has made me aware of multiple points re the characters and the series:

1) Certain characters were really marginalized in terms of character development AND the potential of their respective powers-Colossal Boy mostly is on the edges of LSH adventures, unless even the creative tan had tired of writing the Krypton Kids for a story or two, and needed a replacement powerhouse; Shadow Lass was supposed to be a planetary champion, but mostly just became Mon-El's girlfriend after her first few adventures with the team. Conversely, every writer liked using Mon-El, Ultra-Boy, Brainiac 5, the founding trio, Dream Girl, Wildfire, Dawnstar, and a handful of others depending on the era.

2) Some members got writers who made the absolute MOST out of their powers (Bouncing Boy), while others languished (the doomed Chemical King).

3)The LSH REALLY points out how white-bread comics were in the Silver and Bronze Ages-there are more clearly alien members than non-whites (two black members before the reboot, including one monumental embarrassment, one Amerindian, one half-Asian,,,and that was that). Remember, this was supposedly a team which drew its members from across the Earth and the U.P. member worlds.

4) Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz did great work in their day...and so did Jim Shooter/Mike Grell and Jim Shooter/Dave Cockrum; Giffen on his own was God-Awful for the LSH; goofy, rubber-faced artwork, an utter hack job on the Subs (These characters are ridiculous! HA HA HA BWAH-HA! Aren't they hilarious!?); and utterly petty animus against Karate Kid.

5) Most of the LSH's weaker members would actually be really effective, if genre tropes didn't hold them back-the glass cannons should be wearing advanced body armor, others should routinely work in tandem (Night Girl and Shadow Lass, Color Kid should be on the Espionage Squad, Bouncing Boy and either of the gravity/mass manipulators).

6) Too many members' powers were underdeveloped because of writers relying on Superboy, Supergirl, and Mon-El. Way too many, with a few (such as Cosmic Boy or Star Boy) sometimes getting power-ups only for later writers to just ignore them again.

7) The 5-YR Gap LSH looks even worse in hindsight, and the SW6 (semi-reboot) Legion looks better with the passage of time.

8) DC squandered the potential to develop a major superhero franchise THREE times over now-the Legion, the Titans, and arguably even the Authority (which was white-hot for a few years in the early oughts). Not a good track record.

All my best.
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*sigh*... DAWNSTAR...

Post by Jabroniville »

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DAWNSTAR (aka Bounty)
Created By:
Paul Levitz & Mike Grell
First Appearance: Superboy & The Legion of Super-Heroes #226 (April 1977)
Home Planet: Starhaven
Origin of Powers: Racial Abilities
Eras: Original Only
Relationships: Wildfire (unrequited mutual love), Jhodan (one-shot dude)
Role: Miss Fanservice, Untouchable Serious Girl
PL 9 (157)
STRENGTH
2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 5
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 1 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Aerobatics 9 (+14)
Close Combat (Wings) 2 (+10)
Deception 4 (+5, +7 Attractive)
Expertise (Native Stereotype) 5 (+6)
Expertise (Space Hero) 8 (+9)
Insight 4 (+6)
Intimidation 4 (+5)
Investigation 2 (+4)
Perception 14 (+16)
Stealth 2 (+7)
Vehicles 2 (+7)

Advantages:
Agile Feint, Attractive (NO ARGUING- I don't care if she's brash and abrasive to everyone, and never statistically uses it. She earns at least one rank), Defensive Roll, Equipment 10 (Legion Gear), Evasion, Favoured Environment 2 (Airborne, Outer Space), Great Endurance, Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Move-By Action, Ranged Attack 3, Set-Up, Teamwork, Uncanny Dodge

Powers:
"Starhavenite Physiology"
Flight 9 (1,000 mph) (Flaws: Winged) [9]
Movement 3 (Space Travel 3 [6]

Immunity 6 (Cold, Heat, Vacuum, Pressure, Suffocation 2) [6]
"Wing Strike" Strength-Damage +2 [2]

"Super-Tracking Powers"
Senses 12 (Mental Senses- Accurate, Acute & Exended 5, Direction Sense, Distance Sense, Tracking 2) [12]

Equipment:
"Legion Gear"
"Telepathic Ear Plug" Comprehend 3 (Languages) (6)

"Legion Flight Ring"
Flight 7 (250 mph) (14)
Immunity 7 (Hot, Cold, Vacuum, Pressure, Radiation, Suffocation 2) (7)
Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) (2)
Communication 5 (Flaws: Fifth Rank is only towards Legionnaires) (18)

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Wings +10 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +9

Defenses:
Dodge +13 (DC 23), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +3 (+4 D.Roll), Fortitude +5, Will +7

Complications: 
Quirk (Loner)- Dawnstar doesn't do well with others, and frequently acts aloof and holds everyone at arm's-length, rarely opening up to others.
Relationship (Wildfire)- It's... complicated. She appeared to respect him as a colleague, but was frequently irritated by his posessive, protective personality. The fact that they could never be PHYSICALLY together also kept them apart as well, She thus stands apart from him, while also nearly always being by his side.

Total: Abilities: 50 / Skills: 56--28 / Advantages: 26 / Powers: 35 / Defenses: 18 (157)

*sigh*... DAWNSTAR...:
-A very iconic Legionnaire for her time, Dawnstar piqued fans' interest early on by being the nudest, hottest chick on a TEAM of nearly-nude, hot chicks. I mean, this was the Mike Grell "Nude Legion", but when this exotic-looking winged beauty came in with a neckline that reached past her belly-button... fans were in LOVE. Especially so since she acted completely cold and distant to everyone. That whole aloof, "I don't really care what you think" attitude... woof. Lindsey "The Nostalgia Chick" Ellis pointed this out about The Last Unicorn, when the Prince just starts OBSESSING over Lady Amalthea simply because she doesn't give a crap about him- that stuff works on dudes pretty hardcore.

-Her people's origin story is... weird. To the point where writers are better-off just glossing it over. Her people are the descendants of Native Americans, abducted by villains centuries ago, and sent to Starhaven, where they gained wings and superhuman tracking abilities. And despite it being THE THIRTIETH CENTURY, she was flying around wearing buckskins and beads. Like even in the future, Natives gotta look as stereotypical as possible. It's... a bit goofy.

Dawnstar's Debut:
-Dawny makes her debut as the surprise recruit of Wildfire, during his short tenure as Legion leader- the braggart goes on and on about how his new recruit (who REALLY seems to impress him, if you know what I mean) is gonna save the day, and her Super-Tracking powers prove instrumental. Normally tasked with leading starships around, or hunters to their space-prey, she is delighted to the point of tears to be asked to join the Legion full-time. This sets up Wildfire/Dawnstar as another "pairing" on the team, as the two are rarely seen out of each other's presence for long.

-Dawnstar's early personality is one of... *sigh*... cool, casual aloofness. She's also quite confident in her tracking abilities, which are occasionally quite useful (though if it's a plot point that people don't know where the others are, there's often some random thing stopping her from just finding them. It's like they gave her the power without considering how many stories she can stop in their tracks, so her ONE GOOD TRICK is often rendered useless)- she even appears in the first issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths, though her role is diminished after that point. Her & Wildfire of course had the classic "Star-Crossed Lovers" thing going on, as they respected each other's supremely-confident personality, and Wildfire was CLEARLY infatuated with his beautiful teammate, but both of them knew they couldn't really BE together, since he was just invisible energy in a big suit. This kind of barrier between them often made her act overly-cold or distant, pushing Drake away before he could get too close. And once, when she found herself injured on a primitive alien world, she got a crush on a local boy and forgot all about Drake (who, heartbroken, more or less told her to follow her heart because of his own self-hatred, combined with wanting the best for her). Alas, this was just a quick fling (she was still QUITE young at this point), and went nowhere.

-The pair were off like this for a while, and a minor history reboot at the hands of Mordru showed her possessed by an evil being called Bounty, who amputated her beloved wings, and acted as an assassin. Freed from the control eventually, she moved on, still couldn't QUITE get together with Drake (he took an "unnatural" form, then couldn't touch her without burning her- she was willing to suffer for him, but he couldn't stand to see her hurt, then he was possessing Sun Boy's corpse). She vanished during the ending the first Legion continuity.

Dawnstar in Modern Times:
-Dawny ended up being rather iconic to "her" Legion, as she was one of the few members to never make the jump to another continuity. Wildfire kind of popped up in different forms, but a grey bug-girl named Shikari took her role in the "Reboot" continuity. Therefore, spotting Dawnstar is really emblematic of a "1970s-80s Legion Story". Later writers didn't care as much for her- the Bierbaums, a couple who took over the Legion book from Keith Giffen, dismissed her as "Marvel Pretense", which is probably part of why their Legion faded away into nothingness- people LIKE their Marvel-type characters, goddamit! She & Wildfire in particular really stand out as Marvelized characters in the DC Universe- grumpy basket cases with attitude problems on a team full of shiny, peppy white people with goofy names.

-Dawnstar reappears in modern times for the JLA/JSA crossover, with her & Wildfire confessing their love for each other about fifteen years after they disappeared from continuity. She & he were on the cancelled "New 52" Legion Lost book as well, as apparently some real attempts were made at pushing her. Hey, you gotta make a "Diversity Character" stick, you could do a lot worse than one who was actually created in the 1970s instead of some newbie you gotta push from the ground up. Despite the writers never REALLY focusing on her too much (Levitz mostly had her as a Plot Device and backgrounder; later writers didn't care for her), she's arguably one of the most popular female Legionnaires every time I do one of these sets. Must be her great characterization and... oh f*ck it, we all know why.

-IT'S THE SUPER V-NECK!!!! Because HOLY CRAP. That costume alone has pretty well made Dawnstar the most popular female Legionnaire amongst the entire generation who hit puberty while reading the Legion book! Dream Girl was more openly flirty and did all the cover-girl poses, and Shadow Lass showed more skin, and cleavage was as common at Legion Meetings as Flight Rings were, but that is a LLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW cut suit. Personally, I'm just fascinated by her relationship with Wildfire; it's a bit too bad they never properly compensated it- you can't "Will They/Won't They" for more than fifteen years. It seems the writers loved the tragedy of the romance (which, to be fair, was most of the appeal), but so many circumstances popped up to keep them apart (she found another; he was hot to the touch; he was in a dead body) that it got a bit tired, and then the new writers didn't care for either character, so they just disappeared.

Dawnstar's Powers- An Annoyance in M&M:
-Dawnstar's powers are a bit weird, as she's a Space Flyer type of character, but lacks any sort of raw power, instead focusing on a hard-to-stat type of power. Joshua Dunlow (our own MisterB!) had it set up in 2e, and DCA has the same general idea- you basically throw Extended & a bunch of other Senses on a generic Mental Sense- she can virtually do ESP on specific targets. It's pretty handy, because the team can generally just follow her to wherever they need to be, instead of doing any pesky detective work. She can move full-out while doing so, as well, because hey, when "Tracking" is your SOLE gimmick, I'll let you do it better than anyone, ever.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Mon May 30, 2022 4:12 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Ares
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

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greycrusader wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 3:05 am 5) Most of the LSH's weaker members would actually be really effective, if genre tropes didn't hold them back-the glass cannons should be wearing advanced body armor,
Minor sidenote, but in my own games and head-canon, pretty much every superherowho doesn't have some degree of invulnerability or some advanced defensive abilities is wearing the kind of "spandex body armor" Batman, Nightwing and the rest of the Bat Clan wore before the 2011 reboot started making the body armor look less like spandex and more like weird composite armor. Or unstable molecule-type super suits functioned as much the same way. Just a little body armor that retains the superhero look to help handwave these characters survivability.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

Post by Batgirl III »

And despite it being THE THIRTIETH CENTURY, she was flying around wearing buckskins and beads. Like even in the future, Natives gotta look as stereotypical as possible. It's... a bit goofy.
Hey, man. It was the Seventies. Everyone from ABBA to Frank Zappa was sporting buckskins and beads, man. It was a groovy hold-over from Sixties hippie fashion meeting Seventies disco chic... It even lasted into the Mid-Eighties as a sort of red-neck machismo look, with Chuck Norris and Mr. T still sporting elements of it.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

Post by Ares »

Assuming my memory is working right, it was actually pretty hilarious when Shikari was introduced to the Reboot Legion, because the writers insisted that she wasn't just the reboot version of Dawnstar. Despite being an alien girl with wings who could fly in space and had super tracking powers. She was an obvious Dawnstar stand-in, with the twist being that she was more bug than bird. She did have kind of a cool thing where she could armor herself up, but seriously, they should have just owned up to it.

One semi-interesting aspect of Dawnstar is that she's possibly the fastest person with "winged flight" ever, barring anyone I'm forgetting. She got into a fight with a Legion of Supervillains member who could turn into light (Lazon?), and when the guy tried to escape, SHE WAS ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH HIM. Her wings let her fly at the speed of light, and possibly interstellar speeds. I mean, jeez, Archangle's got nothing on her.

If I was going to update Dawnstar, I'd likely go with the DCAU idea that Thanagarians have natural wings, and that they actually tend towards darker skin tones than the typical Caucasian coloration (hence why when the original Hawks crashed in Egypt, they could pass for Egptians). By the time of the 30th century, the planet Thanagar was destroyed, either in a war or due to their people's misuse of the Nth Element, the exposure to which caused them to develop FTL flight, the ability to survive in space and an advanced tracking ability. The survivors were taken in by the United Planets, and in gratitude the Thanagarians work as scouts, guides and the like, while also having their own artificial colony in space for them to live on. Because her actual origin is only marginally better than Tyroc's.

Overall, Dawny was a fun character in her interaction with Drake, and like I mentioned, I wanted to see them get together. But as a character, the "cold, aloof" types never really did it for me. Maybe I'm just atypical, or maybe I had enough girls like that in highschool treat me like crap to where I realized early on "Nope, WAY more trouble than they're worth". Some of that fan-art tho. DAMN. It says something that SHE'S Miss Fanservice on a team that had a whole era dedicated to fanservice.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

Post by Jabroniville »

An enormous, ENORMOUS chunk of why I don't care much about the "Reboot" or "Threeboot" eras of the Legion, nor the cartoon series, is the lack of Wildfire & Dawnstar. To me, they're such a fun, fascinating bit of characterization, and their contrariness to each other, and Wildfire's to the rest of the Legion, is such a great shot in the arm to a pretty stoic squad of friendly types.

Both versions eventually added a "Wildfire", but... all they kept was the power-set and the general look (albeit worse- NIGHTCRAWLER ARTISTS NEED TO LEARN THIS, TOO! DON'T BUGGER UP A COCKRUM DESIGN!!!). That overly-passionate, brusque, loud personality is a HUGE part of that character, and his relationship with Dawnstar is the thing that HUMANIZES him. Leave out either part of that, and you're basically left with "Wildfire In Name Only" (hee... WINO). Dawnstar is such a big part of that character that leaving her out of the continuity makes Wildfire diminished. The only way to really "fix it" would be to put someone else in her place.

It doesn't help that other Legion books more or less copied Wildfire's personality, just on the previously-nicer characters. But like Ares said, they did it by making the characters into JERKS or selfish assholes in a lot of cases. Wildfire was... different. He didn't have much in the way of people skills, but he was more callous and impulsive than a major asshole. He didn't "Danny Chase" his teammates with childish insults, didn't go on about how great he was, and didn't overdo it.

Reading the issues where he gets argumentative, he's always REACTING to something- he doesn't blow up at people without reason. When he gets mad at Sun Boy, it's because Sun Boy pranked him, and when he gets pissed off at Dream Girl (a recurring thing), it's because he's finding her too bossy and pushy, which, importantly, is what annoyed OTHER Legionnaires. So he comes off as over-the-top and aggressive, but not a needless jerk.

Also important is that when he reacted that way, people called him out on it. Brainiac said "he may be loud, but...", and Ultra Boy called him an "ass". So he wasn't allowed to just say whatever he wanted and get away with it.

And he wasn't really an arrogant braggart. At worst, he would overestimate himself or fly in half-cocked. But he knew his stuff, and would be the first to admit it when he screwed up. His "Origin Retelling" issue (written by Roy Thomas, which is probably why it comes off so "introspective" and focused) contains a lot of inner monologuing about how he's screwed up his tactics, etc. Heck, he was very protective and honest with his trainees (Crystal Kid, Nightwind & Lamprey), owning up to his misbehavior, being open about how he was a screw-up back in the day, and confessed his mistakes. When Lightning Lad overhears his origin story, the narration notes that "The Legion had pieced most of this together already- they do very thorough research on recruits"). His "I don't want to tell anyone the full origin story because I don't want my teammates to feel SORRY for me!" thing was a very human moment.

And it helped that he had reasoning for being a bit "off". He acted out due to inner torment and other Marvel-ish things. And you saw more "humanity" in his scenes with Dawnstar (always being protective or fawning over her, when he's brusque or casual with everyone else).
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 3:39 am One semi-interesting aspect of Dawnstar is that she's possibly the fastest person with "winged flight" ever, barring anyone I'm forgetting. She got into a fight with a Legion of Supervillains member who could turn into light (Lazon?), and when the guy tried to escape, SHE WAS ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH HIM. Her wings let her fly at the speed of light, and possibly interstellar speeds. I mean, jeez, Archangle's got nothing on her.
Oh yeah, she was running circles around Lazon- he only tagged her because she got distracted by Magno Lad taking Wildfire apart. She moves at superluminal speeds so far that she doesn't even fly in the Legion Space Cruisers. She's arguably the fastest flier in DC comics PERIOD, never mind "Winged Fliers".
Overall, Dawny was a fun character in her interaction with Drake, and like I mentioned, I wanted to see them get together. But as a character, the "cold, aloof" types never really did it for me. Maybe I'm just atypical, or maybe I had enough girls like that in highschool treat me like crap to where I realized early on "Nope, WAY more trouble than they're worth". Some of that fan-art tho. DAMN. It says something that SHE'S Miss Fanservice on a team that had a whole era dedicated to fanservice.
I think it's a combination of her "Exotic Woman" thing, the skin tone, her comparative youthful passion, the straight long hair, the mega-cleavage, the wings, and the aloofness. I mean, there's been characters who show more skin, especially on the Legion's book, but most of them were Standard Pretty White Lady-types, and were generally either Friendly-Types, or High School Popular Girl (Dream Girl).

PS I'm not sure I used enough pics for Dawnstar's build. I apologize to anyone who was disappointed in the lack of imagery.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire! Dawnstar!)

Post by Ken »

There's also the angel imagery, which people tend to associate with beauty and sex (despite the inhuman and asexual nature of angels being clear in the literature).


I also have to say, looking at some of those pics, it isn't just the wings that let Dawnstar defy gravity... if you know what I mean.
Last edited by Ken on Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire! Dawnstar!)

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Ken wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:37 am
I also have to say, looking at some of those pics, it isn't just the wings that let Dawnstar defy gravity... if you know what I mean.
Yeah...I think it is the star emblem on her forehead too! :lol:
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Kinetix! Supergirl! Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire!)

Post by Jabroniville »

greycrusader wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 3:05 am Reading the updated Legion builds has made me aware of multiple points re the characters and the series:

1) Certain characters were really marginalized in terms of character development AND the potential of their respective powers-Colossal Boy mostly is on the edges of LSH adventures, unless even the creative tan had tired of writing the Krypton Kids for a story or two, and needed a replacement powerhouse; Shadow Lass was supposed to be a planetary champion, but mostly just became Mon-El's girlfriend after her first few adventures with the team. Conversely, every writer liked using Mon-El, Ultra-Boy, Brainiac 5, the founding trio, Dream Girl, Wildfire, Dawnstar, and a handful of others depending on the era.
Yeah, Brianiac is arguably the most-used member of the team PERIOD, taking hugely-prominent roles in all three continuities, and being the main hero in Legion of Three Worlds as well. Not bad for a guy whose closest thing to a "steady girl" died in the friggin' CRISIS.
2) Some members got writers who made the absolute MOST out of their powers (Bouncing Boy), while others languished (the doomed Chemical King).
Yeah, it's kinda funny that way. Bouncing Boy's powers aren't even really that BAD- they just lack power. Plenty of Legionnaires were worse in a fistfight.
3)The LSH REALLY points out how white-bread comics were in the Silver and Bronze Ages-there are more clearly alien members than non-whites (two black members before the reboot, including one monumental embarrassment, one Amerindian, one half-Asian,,,and that was that). Remember, this was supposedly a team which drew its members from across the Earth and the U.P. member worlds.
It's one of the more noticeable traits of the team, to me. Not only is it SUPER-white, but they're wearing fairly "Generic Super-Hero Costumes", usually without any distinct signifiers or logos. A couple are lucky enough to have their powers shown (Lightning Bolts), while others are stuck with "Black Bikini".

The funny thing is, so many characters have pretty blank, generic personalities, that some added "color" would make them stand out a LOT more. As it stands, Generic Pretty White Girl got used to particular excess, especially since their body types didn't even vary- they were SUPPOSED TO, judging by the "Artist Notes" (like Giffen's, who indicated that Violet & Duo Damsel were fairly flat-chested), but if artists who draw books featuring TWO female characters can't vary up the dimensions, they a guy drawing TWENTY of them sure as shit isn't gonna bother to keep that consistent...

This is a case where Muscular Girl, BBW Lass, Corpulent Lass, and Giantess Girl would have come in handy. Not that I... would be INTO any of that... oh no...
4) Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz did great work in their day...and so did Jim Shooter/Mike Grell and Jim Shooter/Dave Cockrum; Giffen on his own was God-Awful for the LSH; goofy, rubber-faced artwork, an utter hack job on the Subs (These characters are ridiculous! HA HA HA BWAH-HA! Aren't they hilarious!?); and utterly petty animus against Karate Kid.
Thank god more people agree with me on that. One guy at another forum I used to frequent just LOVED Giffen, and worshipped the "Five Years Later" era in particular. As he was usually a smart guy, this was really bizarre to me. In retrospect, it's quite clear that Giffen KILLED that book- when thirty years of continuity f*cking DIES a couple years after you end your massive run... you done f*cked up, son.
5) Most of the LSH's weaker members would actually be really effective, if genre tropes didn't hold them back-the glass cannons should be wearing advanced body armor, others should routinely work in tandem (Night Girl and Shadow Lass, Color Kid should be on the Espionage Squad, Bouncing Boy and either of the gravity/mass manipulators).
Yeah, it's kinda funny how much Genre Conventions are at hold here. They invent an INVISIBLE SHEATH that can let a person survive in space just so we can see their sexy costumes and all that bared flesh, but Protective Armor is of course completely impossible.
7) The 5-YR Gap LSH looks even worse in hindsight, and the SW6 (semi-reboot) Legion looks better with the passage of time.
Yeah, that little bit was curious to me when I looked on Wikipedia. It's basically glossed over so completely that all I can do in my notes is include "Element Lad met his SW6 Clone, who called himself Alchemist". It does lead to the hilarity of all the Silver Age Legionnaires having FOUR incarnations over the years, which is a lot even for DC. This is like 20+ people with FOUR DISTINCT VERSIONS!!!
8) DC squandered the potential to develop a major superhero franchise THREE times over now-the Legion, the Titans, and arguably even the Authority (which was white-hot for a few years in the early oughts). Not a good track record.
It's a very, very weird thing. Reading the retrospectives from the writers on both Titan & Legion-themed stuff puts a really fine point on just HOW BADLY DC dropped the ball. The Titans & LOSH books were rivalling the mighty X-Men in sales in the early '80s, and were DC's top two books. By the 1990s, the Titans was in a death spiral, and the Legion lasted until 1993 before they actually KILLED EVERYTHING AND STARTED OVER. Meanwhile, Marvel kept that X-Men Gravy Train going through the '80s, the early '90s, Claremont's departure, SCOTT LOBDELL taking over, 900 side-titles being created, multiple characters being messed up so badly that NO writer could save them (Gambit), and yet is not only STILL going strong, it resisted Marvel's active attempts to de-emphasize them in favor of the Inhumans, and has had more Live-Action Movies featuring the characters than friggin' Superman has had.

DC really IS the "WCW" of comics- a WB-owned franchise that buggers the landing on every single thing they touch, bungles every lead they have, and are constantly made to look stupid by a scrappy bunch of New Yorkers who practically stumble ass-backwards into extremely-successful franchises. "Oh hey, these failed Silver Age mutant characters are back, with a new squad of nobodies, replacing all of the beloved characters. Let's give 'em to Len Wein's assistant and see what he can do with them". "Hey, Spider-Man needs a new villain. Let's slap an angry mouth on his old costume and see what becomes of him". "Hm, we have this B-tier character who's become a huge king of the assholes in the comics. Let's let a washed-up ex-drug addict play him in a movie- what's the worst that could happen?"
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kreuzritter
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Re: Kent Shakespeare

Post by kreuzritter »

Woodclaw wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:10 pmI'm kind of scared to ask about it.
supply rocket containing all the things young Kal-el would need for a long life on earth
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire! Dawnstar!)

Post by Batgirl III »

Marvel (until recently) never seemed as afraid of retcons and soft reboots as DC. Someone would do a lengthy run on a book, hand it off to a new writer, and the new guy would scrap everything in a issue or two and be off to the races in a new direction... The X-Books saw this the most, but so did all the other titles at one point or another.
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Ares
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Element Lad! Trainees! Wildfire! Dawnstar!)

Post by Ares »

Batgirl III wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 3:40 pm Marvel (until recently) never seemed as afraid of retcons and soft reboots as DC. Someone would do a lengthy run on a book, hand it off to a new writer, and the new guy would scrap everything in a issue or two and be off to the races in a new direction... The X-Books saw this the most, but so did all the other titles at one point or another.
One of the more hilarious versions of this was in the 80s Iron Man book. The previous writer spent 50+ issues establishing a status quo of Tony working with a brother/sister scientist duo, Stark Enterprises being taken over by Stane, AIM being a major league Iron Man foe, Iron Man's armor having a new "chameleon" circuit, etc. Then in the space of two issues, the new creative team has the chameleon circuit be dangerous to Tony and gotten rid of, kills off the remaining scientist sibbling, takes AIM out of the picture, and has Tony create Stark International. It was just AMAZING how quickly they decided to just move past all of this stuff the last creative team spent time developing. But I will give them credit, at least they DEALT with those issues and did their best to resolve them in story, they didn't just ignore them.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
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Jabroniville
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Shikari

Post by Jabroniville »

Image
Image

mmm... sexy bug cleavage...

SHIKARI
Created By:
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning & Olivier Coipel
First Appearance: Legion Lost #1 (May 2000)
Home Planet: The Kwai
Origin of Powers: Racial Abilities
Eras: Reboot Only
Relationships: None
Role: Weird Girl, Super-Tracker
PL 9 (145)
STRENGTH
3 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 7
FIGHTING 10 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Aerobatics 5 (+12)
Expertise (Survival) 7 (+8)
Expertise (Space Hero) 4 (+4)
Perception 10 (+11)
Investigation 3 (+4)
Stealth 3 (+10)

Advantages:
All-Out Attack, Equipment 10 (Legion Gear), Evasion, Favoured Environment (Airborne), Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 3

Powers:
"Kwai Physiology"
"Super-Tracking Powers" Senses 12 (Mental Senses- Accurate, Acute & Exended 5, Direction Sense, Distance Sense, Tracking 2) [12]
"True Sight" Senses 4 (Vision Counters Illusion) [4]

Flight 8 (500 mph) (Flaws: Winged) [8]
Movement 2 (Space Travel 2) [4]
Movement 1 (Wall-Crawling) [2]

"Retractory Exo-Skeleton"
Protection 5 (Feats: Subtle) [6]
Immunity 4 (Cold, Vacuum, Suffocation 2) [4]
"Claws" Strike 1 (Feats: Split) [2]

Equipment:
"Legion Gear"
"Telepathic Ear Plug" Comprehend 3 (Languages) (6)

"Legion Flight Ring"
Flight 7 (250 mph) (14)
Immunity 7 (Hot, Cold, Vacuum, Pressure, Radiation, Suffocation 2) (7)
Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) (2)
Communication 5 (Flaws: Fifth Rank is only towards Legionnaires) (18)

Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Claws +10 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +7

Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +3 (+8 Exo-Skeleton), Fortitude +5, Will +5

Complications:
Quirk (Weird)- Shikari is from a very non-human culture, and often acts a little weird.

Total: Abilities: 58 / Skills: 32--16 / Advantages: 20 / Powers: 42 / Defenses: 9 (145)

-Shikari's one of a race of anthropomorphic bug people, and kind of took on the "wacky alien foreigner" role to a team that had mostly civilized aliens in it, as she adopted 30th-century swearing and generally acted sweet and kind. She and her people were fleeing The Progeny, and she ended up joining the Legion, being a rebel to her more stoic people. The Progeny's leader turned out to be a time-tossed, insane Element Lad. She's one of the more popular Reboot Legionnaires, to the point where she actually gets to SHOW UP in modern continuity (in Legion of Three-Worlds and Infinite Crisis). Oh, and despite having virtually the same powers as Dawnstar, her creators deny she's a Captain Ersatz of that character. Dunno how to take that, but do with it as you will.

-And yes, despite being a giant bug girl, she is actually pretty hot. Stupid hourglass figure and pretty gray-skinned face....

-Shikari is very much like Dawnstar, with a few differences. She also has True Sight (seeing through Illusions, a very rare power to have), Direction Sense (her race are like interstellar cartographers... without maps. Which I guess is the opposite of a cartographer, but whatever. Oh, AND she shunts to an "Exoskeleton"-framed form sometimes, allowing her to be all Combat Warrior Princess. She even beat up a hologram Batman once! So she's a little different than Dawnstar.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Mon May 30, 2022 4:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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