Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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The problem with the Imra revelation is that it screws up all those stories in which someone actually joined the team under false pretenses. Why didn't she catch them?
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Chaim: the Chameleon thing has been interpreted many ways, even by Levitz. How does "form but not function" work exactly? A Lightning Beast must have the biological tools to generate lightning whether it's a gene or a meta-gene. when Cham imitates a fish with gills can he swim and stay underwater? can he smell blood and sense movement like a shark? When he's a bird, why can he fly? is he as light as a bird? his bones as hollow? it gets very confusing when you add super-powers to the mix. he looks like an average human but he's really from Krypton or Braal, etc... and when Cham imitates them...is he doing it at a cellular, genetic level? if so, why can't a Cham as Superboy absorb sun radiation the same way or have dense kryptonian muscles? if not then when he's a fish he shouldn't be able to breathe underwater, when he's a phantom form from BGZTL he can't go thru walls. but we've seen him do that. it's very confusing.
-------------------- Gorilla Nebula
From: san francisco | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: The problem with the Imra revelation is that it screws up all those stories in which someone actually joined the team under false pretenses. Why didn't she catch them?
Easy enough to explain EDE.... The hussy had a problem reading minds of sentients she finds attractive? For example, I don't think either of them were in the original but you know the two of them were just off panel...
Brainy: One of these four is a traitor. Saturn Girl, I need you to mind scan them like you usually do.
Imra: Well it's not Projectra, Ferro Lad or Karate Kid. They all seem to be A1 Legion material. Nemesis Kid seems nice too.
Imra (thought balloon): NK's so dreamy I just want to grope him like I do to Clark every time he comes to the future.
Brainy: Since your power can't detect the traitor, it looks like we will have to let the traitor reveal themselves, endangering the Earth and our teammates in so doing. Quit groping me Saturn Girl, you hussy.
Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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Okay, I'll buy it for Nemesis Kid, but you aren't convincing me she found Blackout Boy gropeworthy.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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That's the "Weddings that wrecked the Legion". She and Brainy created the opportunity for infiltration before they allowed the spies to join. Not to say there wasn't a lot of groping going on. There was tons in this issue too.
Unseen revisionist Imra thought balloon: "This mission allows me to get closer to my teammates."
Brainy Thoughtcast to Imra: "Hey no fair. You've made this mission all about your raging hormones Hussy!"
Narrator's Caption: "Brainiac 5 gets his butt groped after riding a long, green, pickle-shaped object with Saturn Girl."
quote:Chaim: the Chameleon thing has been interpreted many ways, even by Levitz. How does "form but not function" work exactly? A Lightning Beast must have the biological tools to generate lightning whether it's a gene or a meta-gene. when Cham imitates a fish with gills can he swim and stay underwater? can he smell blood and sense movement like a shark? When he's a bird, why can he fly? is he as light as a bird? his bones as hollow?
I imagine that when he's a bird or some other winged creature, he's able to distribute his mass such that his wings have sufficient surface area to generate lift through flapping motion, and his tail is pointed in a proper way to allow him to steer. For fish, I imagine he can form gills that filter oxygen out of water, as filtering is a structural property of a membrane, albeit on a microscopic level. I don't know that I'd buy that a Durlan can duplicate shark senses unless the Durlan has those senses naturally.
I suppose if I needed to sum up my understanding of Durlan shape-change powers, it would be: mechanics can be duplicated, but the basic body chemistry remains standard Durlan body tissue. Properties such as a lightning beast's lightning-generation or a Braalian's magnetism or a Kryptonian's ability to process sunlight into power I'd think (although of course, it's all comic-book pseudoscience anyway) are a function of body chemistry, not physical mechanics.
-------------------- Chaim Mattis Keller ckeller@nyc.rr.com Legion-Reference-File Lad
From: New York, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Chaim Mattis Keller: Re: page 5 of the preview...a lightning beast? How many times do writers need to be reminded, Durlans can only mimic form, not function!!! (unless the function is a result of the form, like a bird's wings)
Maybe Brainy upgraded her. If humans can have 'extra' powers, why can't Durlans?
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: The problem with the Imra revelation is that it screws up all those stories in which someone actually joined the team under false pretenses. Why didn't she catch them?
It doesn't screw them up; it just takes extra explaining. Maybe some people are naturally - or unnaturally - adept at foolong t-paths, sort of like some can fool polygraphs.
Actually, it makes complete sense, from a modern point-of-view; it reincorporates 60s tales into a more believable, and I would also add that it does so without ruining the integrity of the originals, which still stand on their own, once one realizes that any attempt to force a unified continuity on any version of preboot Legion is pointless.
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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Hmm... I just noticed that Earth-man is wearing the Legion ring. Can someone tell me the hows and whys of that?
-------------------- Exnihil: Novelty, if he had a power, the obvious one to me would of course be "The Power of Grayskull"
Registered: Oct 2003
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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quote:Originally posted by Chaim Mattis Keller: Re: page 5 of the preview...a lightning beast? How many times do writers need to be reminded, Durlans can only mimic form, not function!!! (unless the function is a result of the form, like a bird's wings)
I'm pretty sure that Chameleon Boy was able to turn into an electric eel and shock people, so this seems reasonable.
Then again, threeboot Chameleon, who was *explicitly* said to be unable to replicate the functionality of another, was shown using lightning in Lightning Lad's form, so there's definitely been some sloppiness. (Threeboot Shadow Lass was also shown shooting darkness at people. She blocked one of Sun Boy's fire blasts at one point, and hit someone in one of the battles against nameless goons hard enough with 'darkness' that they doubled over. I guess it's 'hard' darkness...)
Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Chaim Mattis Keller: Gorilla Nebula:
quote:Chaim: the Chameleon thing has been interpreted many ways, even by Levitz. How does "form but not function" work exactly? A Lightning Beast must have the biological tools to generate lightning whether it's a gene or a meta-gene. when Cham imitates a fish with gills can he swim and stay underwater? can he smell blood and sense movement like a shark? When he's a bird, why can he fly? is he as light as a bird? his bones as hollow?
I imagine that when he's a bird or some other winged creature, he's able to distribute his mass such that his wings have sufficient surface area to generate lift through flapping motion, and his tail is pointed in a proper way to allow him to steer. For fish, I imagine he can form gills that filter oxygen out of water, as filtering is a structural property of a membrane, albeit on a microscopic level. I don't know that I'd buy that a Durlan can duplicate shark senses unless the Durlan has those senses naturally.
I suppose if I needed to sum up my understanding of Durlan shape-change powers, it would be: mechanics can be duplicated, but the basic body chemistry remains standard Durlan body tissue. Properties such as a lightning beast's lightning-generation or a Braalian's magnetism or a Kryptonian's ability to process sunlight into power I'd think (although of course, it's all comic-book pseudoscience anyway) are a function of body chemistry, not physical mechanics.
I've read Silver Age Cham's power to be more of a personal illusion rather than shape-changing. He was said to have the power of super-disguise. "It is I, Chameleon Boy, disguised as a trash can."
So Cham would still be in the shape of Cham, but look like a trash can. Presumably he could make himself look like a mouse or an elephant, but would have the same mass as he always had. And so would not be able to fit through a tiny crack or weigh down a balloon.
I'd actually like to see this version of his power be used, but I think it is too late to change it back from shape-shifting.
-------------------- Five billion years from now the Sun will go nova and obliterate the Earth. Don't sweat the small stuff!
From: Boston | Registered: Aug 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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I actually think what you're suggesting is what Waid had in mind with the threeboot Cham.
I agree with cmk's basic characterization of how the power should work. I'd also add that becoming a phantom can be explained as becoming "four-dimensional", which is really just a form of extreme shape-changing. Theoretically, he should be able to duplicate Phantom Girl's power in the same way he can duplicate Ron-Karr's.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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I love the idea of Saturn Girl telepathically testing applicants. It certainly explains the rejection of otherwise powerful applicants.
What it DOESN'T explain is why Saturn Girl and the Legion were caught off guard by the "Justice League." They should have known for years the threat presented by these sickos. UNLESS, the sickos have overachieved, perhaps because of some outside help?
As for Cham, I like the super-disguise power approach, too, although I think it infringes too closely on Projectra's turf.
Since the 1980s, when Levitz and Giffen spelled out the nature of Durlans, it's been clear that Durlans are pretty much undifferentiated puddles of protoplasm (a la Odo on STDS9) that can mimic any shape. But, the physical attributes that go with the shape should be severely limited. Otherwise, you're just Animal Man or Beast Boy with antennae and pointy ears. I always assumed Cham was flying with his power ring when he was mimicking a bird or an insect.
I think Waid wanted to take Cham even more in the direction of being a "mimic" of the lifeforms around him. I like that approach even better, because it more closely fits the idea of a "Chameleon" AND it puts an end to all the Mr. Fantastic-style stretchy shapy stuff. Again, that's a cool power, but it's NOT what Cham does. Cham is a mimic.
-------------------- ...but you don't have a moment where you're sitting there staring at a table full of twenty-five characters with little name signs that say, "Hi, my superpower is confusing you!"
From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Novelty: Hmm... I just noticed that Earth-man is wearing the Legion ring. Can someone tell me the hows and whys of that?
If he is wearing a flight ring, my guess would be that he took it off one of the captured Legionnaires. Lousy so-and-so!!!
-------------------- Craig C.
- Time travel stories are told in chronillogical order.
From: Santa Ana, CA | Registered: Jul 2003
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
All the times that Cham has turned into a tiny insect (which would be ridiculously hard to do from a physical science standpoint) or a giant sized critter makes it seem like he can indeed alter his mass. In effect, he's got limited versions of Shrinking Violet's and Colossal Boy's powers.
But I'd hate if they went down the route of giving him any powers of any creature he could turn into. Turning into an electric eel and giving someone a zap is a far cry from turning into a Titanian and gaining telepathy, or a Kryptonian and becoming a god. Most of the Legionnaires have genetically-derived powers, and even those who don't, such as Lightning Lad, seem to have enough genetic connection to their powers (even if they gained them well after birth) that a descendent could have 'mental lightning.'
I guess the question would be, where to draw the line. A Talokkian's ability to see in the dark might be the result of physical changes to the eye, while a Braalian's magnetic powers might involve both changes to the physiology, but also some sort of high-energy infusion from the Braalian magnetosphere, preventing a Durlan from just shifting into a Braalian form and throwing metal stuff around. The Durlan-turned-Braalian might be extra sensitiver to magnetic fields (like a shark or platypus or homing pigeon), but actually be infused with enough magnetic energy to do anything with it, other than make paperclips stick to his fingers. Similarly, if he turned into a Coluan, he might have a highly effective and efficient brain-structure, but none of the training in how to use it, or any of the technical information he'd need to be a 'brainiac.' It might even be dangerous, or at least uncomfortable, for a Durlan to assume certain forms, with unusual senses, for instance, overwhelming the Durlan with unfamilar inputs that it has no frame of reference for how to interpret or 'focus.'
Regardless of the genetics of Kryptonian (or Daxamite) physiology, those power sets are just ridiculous, and having a Durlan able to move his cells around and then be able to shatter planets and fly at lightspeed would be crazy.
And all of that assumes that Durlans are able to mimic genetic-based abilities at all. If Durlans are just blobs like Odo, possibly not even having DNA, let alone being able to mimic the sorts of cells we use, then cutting one open when it's in the form of a squid, or a human, or a trashcan, would reveal the same blobby insides, with no organs or inner structure.
Registered: Aug 2006
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