Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Ranzz Siblings--Weakest Electrical Characters In Comicdom?

Thor is understandable (given that his is a god) but why do so many others such as Storm, Black Lightning, Static, Electro, the female Livewire, and even the old SuperFriends hero, Black Vulcan, been depicted as more powerful than Garth and his family?

On a sidenote, it is interesting to note that whenever a character (Joe Meach, Xan, Earth Man etc.) steals Legionnaire abilities, it seems lightning is used more than any other, perhaps because it is such a visual power...

Bad writing - though a determination not to kill does limit the use of electricity.

I just realized something I never thought of: Is there a statistical correlation between lightning powers and being black? Certain powers tend to be gendered or racialized, but I didn't notice this one.

Generally speaking, it seems like many Legionnaires didn't really learn a lot of 'stunts' compared to solo heroes, as they get less attention. Look at the uses Kitty Pryde has made of her intangibility, compared to Phantom Girl, or Madrox has made of duplication, compared to Trips. Similarly, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy have impressive powersets, but they are rarely, if ever, portrayed on the same scale as Xavier or Magneto.

The sheer size of the team, IMO, has more to do with it than any deliberate action. If we got to see a serious three-part arc focused on Garth (or Ayla or Mekt), it's possible we'd get to see some 'stunts' like using carefully modulated electrical discharges to control machinery or make someone's body move against their will.

It did seem, at a certain point in Legion history (Giffen's Great Darkness era and after, in particular), that many of the Legionnaires increased exponentially in power. Element Lad turned the atmosphere of Earth into a tiny percent lead, to drop the Daxamite invasion force from the sky. Shadow Lass *blotted out a sun* while Sun Boy faked the output of the blotted-out sun to misdirect some migrating space dragons. Saturn Girl was also shown using her powers on a planetary scale, calming and coordinating a planetary evacuation.

It would not surprise me if Lightning Lad could generate bolts of lightning that would blow away anything Black Lightning could generate. Ayla stated recently that he destroyed a 'lightning-proof target,' which, I'm gonna guess means that he generates enough power to redefine what 30th century technology considers 'lightning-proof.'

Because there isn't really a strong training program in the Legion?

If the Legionnaires get too powerful (as mentioned in Set's examples), they become too unbelievable, in my opinion. If you can blot out a sun or change an element in the atmosphere of an *entire world,* what do you need 24 other heroes for?

By all means the Legionnaires should get more powerful as they get older and more experienced. They should also find creative uses for their powers. But I don't want to see Cosmic Boy become Magneto or Invisible Kid project an invisible force a la Sue Richards. The limitations of their powers give them an incentive for working together as a team and also ensure that Legionnaires with less spectacular powers (Bouncing Boy, Triplicate Girl, Matter-Eater Lad) won't be too outclassed.

Well, you can't get anymore powerful than Sun Boy on the recent Action Comics. He simply changed the sun among various galaxies!!!

I thought Sun Boy's powers were being amplified by that machine? Or am I completely wrong, and making things up again?

No, you are correct. But even so, it was his sheer energy that fueled across galaxies. That's a hell of a power, which went on apparently for months!

No, you are correct. But even so, it was his sheer energy that fueled across galaxies. That's a hell of a power, which went on apparently for months! </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's true. Even if his powers were being amplified, you would think, it would've killed him.

They were both very powerful in the 80s. All of the Ranzz children could generate a field of electricity that completely enveloped their bodies.

I think they should have let Ayla have two sets of powers -- anti-gravity and electricity, but they didn't.

Lighting Lass didn't seem quite as powerful in the recent Action Comics story as she was back in the 80s.

Wasn't Ayla powering the Legion underground base on Earth? That's pretty frickin' powerful.

You know, I don't worry so much about power levels, as long as they're consistent, I just wish they'd get a bit more creative in the uses. There are things you can do with lightning that they never consider, in comics. If you can manipulate electrons to make lightning, you ought to be able to produce other electromagnetic phenomena, as well.

I am slightly bugged by how powerful the flight rings are becoming. And I hate, I hate, I hate the transmatter gates. Ships are so much cooler, and don't offer the deus ex machina cop-out to the writers. Just my thing.

It would be cool if Ayla's powers evolved to let her do some electrical stuff, as well as anti-grav. Or maybe she has residual sensitivity to EM fields or something. It'd be nice to see someone think of new ways to use existing powers, etc, rather than heaping new powers onto existing characters.

Joe

One of many cases where more advanced technology is less cool. For Star Trek: The Next Generation, they considered the idea of extending the transporter to interstellar range and recognized that this would make starships obsolete. It didn't take them long to realize that the ship was the setting, more than the planets they travelled to, and the idea was quickly dropped.