Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! New Phantom Girl origin

Okay, I hate the new Phantom Girl origin, so I've come up with one of my own.

What if Bgztl existed in the Phantom Zone and its inhabitants were the descendants of Kryptonian criminals sentenced there from centuries before. The descendants would've had to work together to form a society and would not [all] be criminals obviously. They would not have Kryptonian powers, having never lived under Krypton's red sun and massive gravity. Tinya could be a mutant, who is the only Bgztlian who can leave the Phantom Zone at will, and can partially phase between dimensions, which causes her to become immaterial in ours. It would also be a good explanation for her codename.

I like this idea a lot, not only because it gives a more interesting origin for Tinya, but because it actually makes more sense for the Phantom Zone as a place of punishment. I've always thought the idea of imprisoning criminals by giving them an existence in which they were completely free of bodily needs, were virtually immortal, and could spy invisibly on anyone they wanted really didn't make a lot of sense.

A stroke of brilliance. Too bad the creators never thought of it.

Great idea Jim! I really like it too! Maybe it's not too late for it to be incorporated into the Legion mythos someway/somehow. Paging Barry or Mark!

great idea, that truly would be a cool origin for TINYA !!

Matthew.

I agree-- a cool idea, one that could work with the 'current' origin/Bgztl status, as far as I can see.

*AND* it would lead to a natural way to introduce Mon-el.

Though I'm not sold on the new kinks in Tinya's power, I think it will be interesting to see what happens when something requiring action occurs on both Earth and Bgztl simultaneously.

Eventually wouldn't some bonehead Kryptonian judge sentence a Peeping Tom to the Phantom Zone.

I'm agree 100% with jimgallager idea.
Maybe in a near future. We (The True Fans)can inter-write the Legion Plot.
And the so infamous producers, genious of the marketing, and bad writers can't the destroy the traditional origen of the main characters.

Good idea. But just explain one thing to me. How could there be descendants in the Phantom Zone? They can procreate? I always understood they were immaterial in the Zone too. Zone inhabitants are supposed to be unaging, require no food, air, or water. And they are mutually insubstantial, unable to interact with each other except through telepathy.

Has this changed, post-boot?

One more question. Doesn't Bgztl just link to Earth's dimension through the Phantom Zone? Or does it exist entirely within the Phantom Zone? I've always imagined that the Phantom Zone was a bridge between our dimension and Bgztl's.

I'm not sure, LL. I don't read the Superman books.

There was a L.E.G.I.O.N. ish where Phase went to Bgztl's dimension, and it certainly wasn't like the traditional Phantom Zone; there were various planets and things, you could be injured or killed, etc. So that would argue for the Zone just being a bridge, as you say.

That may have been completely invalidated by Zero Hour, though, as was Phase's meeting with Jo Nah.

As I recall, Bgztl and the Phantom Zone were not connected at all in the original Legion, though Tinya was able to use the same dimension-crossing powers that she used to travel back and forth between Earth and Bgtzl to travel to the Phantom Zone as well. In the Glorthverse reality, the Phantom Zone was replaced by the "Bgztl Buffer Zone", the dimensional limbo in-between Earth and Bgztl, as the place that Lar Gand spent his 1000 year exile.

I really like the Phantom Zone tie in, though I'd prefer they not be Kryptonian in origin.

They could even be the descendants of some alien race that once invaded Krypton only to be placed in a Phantom Zone like dimension by Jor El.

I'd be all for it except for those pesky, begging-to-be-retconned ties to the oh-so-malleable Superman mythos.

I like your idea too, Jim. Maybe long exposure in the Phantom Zone allowed the "inmates" to constitute themselves into a physical (albeit spirit) body, hence the eventual Btzgl decendants. Some P-Zone prisoners had been known to be able to project thoughts/suggestions mentally outside the Zone on occasion by practice. Mon-El's Daxamite physiology prevented him from taking physical form in the Zone, requiring the Legion's help in bailing him out.

PS - The current version makes Tinya seem even more "ditzy" than Dream Girl ever was, with the spacing in and out of dual realities...

Phantom Girl being from the Phantom Zone? Great idea! And yes her new origin is pretty bad.

I guess I'd forgotten that the Zone residents couldn't touch each other. Maybe PG's race could be non-Kryptonian inhabitants. Heck, I dunno.

How's this? A Kryptonian family decides to escape the destruction of Krypton by projecting themselves into the Phantom Zone. Eventually their daughter, Tinya, discovers that she can leave the zone at will. This ability also allows her to be immaterial in our dimension. Having been a teenager for 1,000 years in the zone, she now begins to age normally when in our dimension. She could've even "grown up" with Mon-El and discover a way to spring him as well.

Maybe she could even inherit some of the Kryptonian powers when she exited the zone. It would be great if she had flight, invulnerability, and x-ray vision. The invulnerability combined with her phasing power would make her similar to the Vision with his density altering powers. Flight would be a good power for a ghost to have, and the x-ray vision would help her navigate when passing through solids. In fact, I don't know how she's gotten by without it for all this time. These changes would make her character and power much more interesting. Let's face it. All she's done for the last 40 years is coo over Ultra Boy, get catty with Shadow Lass, and walk through a wall now and then.

Well, the most recent version of the Phantom Zone (in 'Superman: For Tomorrow') was a lot different than earlier ones. The million or so people Supes transported there for safety didn't become discorporate - they could communicate normally and touch, eat peaches, have sex, even beat the crap out of one another, as Supes and Zod did. At the end, the Zone seemed to be breaking up and there were only three beings left in it, Zod and the two OMACs - or whatever the heck they were.

So if Waid wanted to use it for Tinya's origin, or even Mon-El's, he'd probably have to ignore or retcon what Azzarello just wrote over the past year. Not that that would be a bad thing, mind you, but it just underlines the persistent problem of using ANY people or places closely associated with Superman and the 21st century DCU.

That said, I agree that Tinya's new origin story was really, really bad.

I'm quite happy with Tinya's new origin, but it could be easily merged with this idea--and regardless of what's happening with the Zone right now, there's a thousand years to alter it as necessary, right? Maybe it was restored, maybe a few of the humans Supes brought there didn't come back, who knows.

I certainly agree that a Bgztl/Phantom Zone/Krypton connection would be fun.

Sounds a bit like the "Survival Zone" which Zor-El and Allura used to escape Kandor's destruction, pre-Crisis.