Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Shadow Lass

Is anyone else worried what the characterization of Shadow Lass is gonna be like in the new series, If they move back to the Pre-Umbra days she's just gonna be a useless character crying over Mon-el all the time. Her character really stood out in the last 2 incarnations of the Legion as a very competent & independent person with some edge, I'm gonna miss that.

I'm not worried, since Mon-el isn't currently dying of lead poisoning, but I can understand your apprehension.
At the start of his second run, Levitz' Shady was fabulous & heroic.(Great Darkness Saga & right after)
In the middle of his second run, she became a bit too catty for me.(First half of Baxter series)
Near the end, I wouldn't say she was wimpy, but the search for a cure became her only reason for being, and while that's certainly noble and heroic, perhaps it got annoying because it seemed to drag on for too long.
I'm hoping that in the current run, she and Night Girl are portrayed as a fierce and fearless GIRL-POWERful team!!

When she started getting over the top catty is when I stopped enjoying her. The same could be said for Tinya. Hopefully we won't return to that level of cattiness.

I guess that's why i always preferred Nura and jeckie.

I just hope we get to see her in between all the focus on the founders and Green Lanterns and such!

i didnt enjoy catty tinya and shadow lass. i had that in school didnt need to pay 75 cents for it.

yeah, shady is one of my favorite characters but she got overwhelmed by Mon-El back then. even though she was her planet's champion. hopefully if tehy renew the romance they will show how amazing and cool she is and is the equal of the uber Mon-El.

which was kinda starting to happen in the end of 5YL, when she had a mohawk.

didn't like insecure bitchy umbra from the archie series tho. did like sullen tortured umbra from legion lost. (after she was blighted)

WOW

Incredible work of art there, Nighty.

Anyway, Paul Levitz gave an interview on io9.com where he strongly hinted that the Shady/Mon-El relationship might be over*. So we might be seeing a more independent Shady in the new book.


* If indeed, it took place in this reality after all.

As I said on FB, that watercolor of Tasmia is highly reminiscent of Kali, the Hindu Goddess of night, sex, change & death!!

Wait... the Hindus have a goddess of sex changes?

This rendition also reminds me of Storm from the X-Men.

Well, they do have like 10,000 gods, including...

The Lo3W presentation of Shadow Lass as being able to drain the yellow solar energy out of a Kryptonian (or Daxamite) really shifts the perception that Shady was in a mix-matched power dynamic with Mon.

She becomes, quite literally, able to shut him off like a light, which is kind of cool.

If her light negating / absorbing fields were shown as able to negate or dampen other types of radiant energy, such as blaster fire (and she should already be able to create an area in which laser weapons won't work...), it might serve to make her a bit more defensively impressive in a universe full of bad-guys who carry energy weapons, instead of pistols.

As for the really important part, her personality, I like that she sometimes came off a bit arrogant. She's *the* planetary champion of Talokk VIII, the equivalent of the entire Justice League, all rolled into a single strong-willed woman, for a *world.* Earth has thousands of super-people flitting about, and some of them, like Superman, have larger than life legacies, but the 'legacy' on Talokk VIII is that of her family, not some alien hero.

I could see her rolling her eyes at the raw ego and earth-centrism on display when fellow Legionnaires, often from diverse worlds with no connection to Superboy at all (and, increasingly being portrayed as pre-existing the 20th century!), get a bit fan-boy-ish about Kal-El.

Have they no pride in their own worlds? What about their own world's heroes? Just because the headquarters were paid for by an Earther (who turned out to be a Durlan anyway...), does that make it right to shun one's own culture and embrace the heroes of earth instead?

[Obviously, out of story, we know that the reason why earth-born or earth-raised heroes are the famous ones with legacies, is because that's where the comic books were written, and not about Vrgxlplat, the universe-saving Cnidarian from Slugor Six, but just because we haven't read any stories about a 23rd century Titanian or 18th century Durlan saving the universe and leaving behind a legacy of heroism that inspired generations of Titanians and Durlans to come, doesn't mean that those worlds didn't have heroes, who would mean every bit as much to them as Superman would mean to Earthlings.]

If all the Hindu Goddesses look like that, I might convert.

Odd that this gorgeous pic...

...and the costume she's wearing also reminded me of Storm all of a sudden when it hadn't occurred to me before. It's obviously reminiscent of the look Tasmia bore during the Superboy/LSH era. Was Dave Cockrum, who created Storm, also the one who first drew Tasmia in that era's costume? The most obvious similarity between their looks was the tiara thingie holding their respective hair up.

Even more eerie is this post:

Tasmia sported a mohawk at some point during 5YL? Who else do we know who had one (and apparently does again) for a long time?

I like the idea of Shady's powers being effective defensively against radiant energy....it gives her something to do other than just making it dark, and it's a more original way of handling darkness powers than the typical comic book life-draining or black energy constructs.

I also think that the one definite way Umbra was an improvement on Shadow Lass as a character was in her fighting prowess. The only time off the top of my head I can think of having seen Shadow Lass show any kind of fighting skill was when she faced Lady Memory and the Persuader in that one issue with Grev, and in an early issue of V4 where she beat the tar out of a probe.

I hope that we see Shady, Phantom Girl and Luornu as more accomplished hand-to-hand fighters in this series, it's something that I think fits them all really well.

I also kind of liked the big scythe thing that Umbra carted around on occasion....Tasmia is from a pretty brutal world, and while I don't necessarily want her turning into Xena, I think it would be cool if she busted out some awesome weapons skills every now and then and really took the Legion by surprise.

She is the champion of a barbarian world and she has no real offensive power; she should be in Batman's class when it comes to hand-to-hand combat IMO.

I mostly just thought of it as an excuse / rationalization / fanwank for why a non-invulnerable person runs around in a darn bikini, in a future full of energy weapons and explosions and stuff.

Still, as you say, it is a new twist on shadow powers that doesn't go the easy 'darkforce' route.

Shady was shown a number of times to have powers effective in shielding from all forms a radiant energy.
Her issue with Tyroc and then later on the Science Astroid, to mention 2.

She also showed the ability to use her power to disorient and isolate the senses by using her powers to go through the optic nerve directly to the brain.
She did that back in the mowhawk days.

Umbra did it also against Mordru.

Umbra had something that Tasmia couldn't have for most of ther original run, the abilities of Lyddea Darkstar, her dotLEGION ancestress.
The power was not connected to the cave rite powers of darkness, but to genetic manipulation on her infant self.
It was an offensive black energy power that killed her mother and could crash through space cruisers, destroying them.

Umbra was also connected to the Dark Realm of the Shade and Obsidian during that time.

I totally prefer Umbra to Shadow Lass, in look and personality, especially after she mellowed some.
It was interesting to have someone who actually acted like a planetary champion from a long line of planetary champions.

I hope TPTB get her out of the bikini and into a fighting outfit.
I think that she should be a physically strong and skilled fighter with body and weapons, as well.

Agreed on all counts. Umbra kicked ass (though I did miss calling her Shady). Got so tired of SL doing nothing but hanging on Mon-El and being catty with PG in Levitz's earlier run. And her current costume is a joke. She looks like a lingerie ad, not a warrior.

In fact, Shadow Lass was capable of fighting prior to the reboot.

I Googled up http://www.majorspoilers.com/archives/4038.htm/ which has some interesting panels, including one where she punches out the Emerald Empress, and another against Lady Memory.

Yes, but somehow Shady's fighting abilities didn't stick as much. Umbra, on the other hand, was shown as a capable fighter in almost every appearance. Guess that's why a lot of us see her as far more kick-ass.

I'd chalk it up to the cattiness.

Somebody said that Levitz mentioned that Shady and Lar are gonna be done with each other soon.

I don't know how I feel about that.
?????

I think there was also a really deliberate effort to make Shady a more defensive rather than offensive fighter. She very rarely actually took someone on to defeat them, but concentrated on protecting/hiding herself or others from the bad guys (not in a cowardly way, I think she was just portrayed as being more comfortable with indirect combat).

She was shown to be an effective fighter when it was necessary, and she never shied away from a challenge, but she preferred to use her powers to avoid taking it on directly.

Contrast that with Umbra, who was always a VERY direct combatant, and rarely used her darkness powers simply to hide from someone..