Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion of Super-Heroes #2 - SPOILERS

I'd describe Titan, Tharr, Bismoll, et al., as planets where the entire population has super-powers. The difference between mimicking the abilities of those races and mimicking the abilities of animals is that animals don't require whatever it is that allows certain beings to violate ordinary physical laws in the DCU. So he can fly as a bird because the ordinary physics of bird-structure allows you to fly, while he can't fly as a Kryptonian because that would require "super-hero magic" in order to fly in that form.

That's basically the postboot Composite Man, which I always thought was a cool concept.

Supposedly, Edie, there is something at their genetic level (adaptive mutations) that allows those races to do what they do. The same could be said of animals who can breathe fire, generate lightning, etc. Science says that chameleons and their like developed their abilities in response to surviving predators and other environmental concerns. So it's not "superhero magic" if everyone of their race can do it.

Well, most superpowers tend to be inheritable. It's very possible that at some point in the future, most of Earth's population could be descended from the Flash, and thus will have his super-speed (perhaps even because it will have adaptive advantage). Would that make Flash's abilities no longer a super-power? Is it a super-power when the Flash does it, but at some point ceases being a super-power in his descendants? At what point should Durlans be able to copy the ability?

If you want to put it terms of standard goofy DC science, presumably there's a fundamental difference between "meta-genes" and ordinary genes. In some races, the entire population has an active meta-gene. I take it Durlans can duplicate genetic structure, but not meta-genetic structure.

Another thing that could distinguish Cham and Yera from other Durlans is the environment they live in. Durlans have been established as being very solitary and self-isolating as a race. But Cham and Yera not only live out in the open but among some really extraordinary sentients.

If you use the reboot and threeboot as examples and how Cham's antennae were shown to be the mechanism for his being able to read other physiologies as a seemingly involuntary act, imagine being among super people constantly and their antennae always analyzing the makeup of their fellows. It's possible the particularities of their genetic codes would be completely catalogued in a very deep way that it wouldn't with a cursory analysis.

If that's true Cham and Yera could conceivably mimic everything about their fellow Legionnaires, down to their powers. This would make the extraordinary even among Durlans.

That's definitely something I was thinking of with my 'House of El' idea, that between Clark and Kara alone, there could be *thousands* of part-Kryptonians flitting around by the 31st century, and if Conner or Power Girl (the other Kara) have some krypto-DNA, they could also spread some around.

It's never entirely clear what abilities will or will not be heritable.

Threeboot Sun Boy's powers seemed to defy the Dominators attempts to replicate them via DNA manipulation, for instance. Is it because they come from an energy-based lifeform living within him in symbiosis, and not a 'mutation' to his DNA?

That could be neat, but is kinda moot, since Prime killed him.

That's a neat idea, and opens up the possibility that one in a million Durlans might also have a meta-gene, and be able to 'shape' their meta-gene to emulate the abilities of other meta-gene-active sentients.

For one thing in my theory, it hints back to the legionnaires keeping an eye on Earth Man...and she was keeping an eye on him back in Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes so it would make sense for her to do that now. I wouldn't think Quislet right away but defintely Espanioge squad type deal.

You have to ask yourself...why would the artist/writer bother with showing us that...then you have to remember there are 2 shape shifters on the team. And it makes sense. Esp since Cham is the next legionnaire we see. And I don't believe its him so Yera is the only one who to me that would make sense for that to be and that hiding something in plain sight that we would get an editorial later on that would say something like,"see she was there all along look at issue 2". It's my sorta guess at what I think I'm seeing ...just like I guessed Mitch was a legionnaire...i thought he was Reep but he turned out to be Tenzil.

Gates says he's being used as a starship, so I'm guessing that he was hopping from planet to planet. I also agree that he shouldn't be that powerful.

As for the moving eyes in the group portrait, I think the artist was just having fun and playing up on the suspicion the Legionnaires feel about E-man. Either that, or it's some kind of spyware. I think declaring it to be Yera is a stretch.

One of my biggest complaints about DnA is that they ignored Gates almost completely, so we never saw the after effects of what R'as did to him. Remember he was using Gates' power to help run his Footstep drives that were used for interstellar travel (wasn't he also cloning Gates for this? I forget). It's possible Gates was powered up by the process and now has extended range.

Good point. I'd forgotten that chapter. Still would hate to see him used as a deus ex machina every time somebody needed to get somewhere quickly. The current instance hardly seems like an emergency--a diplomatic mission to Naltor about the refugee situation.

^ Yeah. I'm not liking this trend of powering up all the Legionnaires. If anything I'd like to see their powers becoming more limited and defined so that they have to use them in more inventive and interesting ways.

Also, the more powerful the Legionnaires become, the more powerful/universe-threatening their enemies have to become.

And I think we're all in agreement at how bored we are of that storyline.

Maybe Paul will reveal later (after reading our comments) that they were using a ship left in orbit to tour the planets and that Gates only teleported them from there.

rouge:

Not quite. He was taking ordinary Vyrgans and "switching on" the genes that apparently all Vyrgans have but only Gates was naturally able to make use of.

I only want the Legionnaires who need it powered up. Some of the others I'd like to see powered down, so that people like I Kid and Phantom Girl aren't so grossly overshadowed by the likes of Wildfire and Mon-El.

Gates' power being so long-range removes a certain sense of drama from stories. In issue 1, we have a panel talking about how Ultra Boy doesn't want to fall behind, and he's only travelling to a moon of Saturn, in Earth's solar system.

Now, in issue 2, Gates could have probably teleported the whole team to Titan in seconds, and possibly teleported half the population off of Titan, depending on how his power works, which is going to prove problematic when they need to provide a 'travel' scene.

Does anybody know at what point in the canon Saturn Girl was said to be from Titan and not Saturn?

As far as Gates goes, it didn't bother me because we got to see him. It would have been just as easy to show the Legionnaires already on Naltor where we would just assume they took a ship to get there.

To me, this wza an effective way to see Gates and to also show Dawnstar's reaction.

I believe it was Cary Bates who first coined the phrase "Titan... a moon of Saturn" but I cannot tell you exactly when.
It was definately while the book was called Superboy starring The Legion Of Super-Heroes and before issue #172.
That's as close as I can get on this one.

Nightcrawler?? Help!

I'm pretty certain she was constistently identified as being from Saturn during the Adventure era, but it seems to have changed by 1974.

Wait... Adv. 350, Letter Column.

I know I am coming into this conversation a tad late, but earlier everyone seemed to be concerned with the fact that Saturn Queen said that she knew Nemesis Kid, when they in fact had never met.

Found this little gem in Legion of Three-Worlds #1 today.
So it seems that Johns soft-retconned in her presence. I found it kind of interesting.

Not only that... notice Tarik the Mute in there alongside characters who weren't even introduced until after his death.

Obviously that's just a museum display.

But according to text pieces in the Mayfair Games TMK sourcebook, Saturn Queen was around the LSV since their earliest days but at that time used her power to mask her presence rather than get caught in their company.

Since it's a museum display that doesn't really mean anything. Superman had both Ferro Lad and Wildfire in his display of statues in the Fortress of Solitude. They could just be showing every person who was ever a member at any time.

[snip]

I think you've kind of answered your own question there, CT. If one character on a team is that powerful, it tends to negate the reasons why they'd need to be part of a team.

Or else you end up in a situation where the character doesn't really need to use their intellect if they're that powerful (ie-- Duplicate Boy)-- which means that the only way they can ever be bested in a fight is if they don't use their head. (Or if they have some goofy weakness like the GL problem with yellow, or wood, or whatever it was.