Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! On a scale how powerful are the Legionnaires

Hi there again, it's me Phantom Girl...I figured I'd better get all my posts in now since apparently Jim Shooter is going to give me some kind of horrific injury and I will never be the same again afterwards....so here goes...

Some of you probably know that I read Legion as a child and teen and thanks to my evil brother who SOLD my Legion comics for a months worth of Marvel titles (against my wishes may I add) I bowed out of comics after that. Now many years later, I got back into Legion. Now some of you may also know that I am creating a Legion of Super-Heroes roleplaying game. The problem is I am not familiar with characters which joined the Legion after White Witch. I will be catching up on a lot of reading in the future but for now I am at a bit of an impass. Since I am not familiar enough with the Legionnaires which joined after White Witch I cannot determine how powerful they would be in comparison to other Legionnaires.

I was hoping folks would be kind enough to tell me who joined and give them a rating of 5-8 for me, with 5 being someone with about as much overall power level as Bouncing Boy or one of the other weaker Legionnaires and an 8 being someone about as powerful as Superboy. Alternatively, if you would, just list the Legionnaire and draw some overall level of power comparisons to other Legionnaires and I can do the scale.

I have put together everyone prior to Blok and White Witch though I admit to being fuzzy on these characters as well. If it interests people, getting other opinions on the origianal characters would be great as well (I'd compare your scale of power to mine and see if I should tweak it). For game purposes this is how I divided people up so far. Despite the clumped togetherness, I really need to keep them in 4 groups. I do expect a range between individauls within each grouping, but hopefully not one that is outrageous and really off the wall. This should also tell you who all I've missed as well. I'm looking for Legionnaires from all titles especially the reboots.


5: Bouncing Boy, Dawnstar, Duo Damsel, Dream Girl, Invisible Kid, Invisible Kid II, Matter-Eater Lad, Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass, Shrinking Violet


6: Chemical King, Colossal Boy, Element Lad, Ferro Lad, Karate Kid, Lightning Lass, Light Lass, Star Boy, Sun Boy, Timber Wolf, Triplicate Girl, Tyroc


7: Brainiac 5, Blok, Chameleon Boy, Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Princess Projectra, Saturn Girl, White Witch, Wildfire


8: Mon-el, Superboy, Supergirl, Ultra Boy


So please, help a fellow Legionnaire in distress!

Some just off the top of my head:L

Kinetix (matter manipulation/telekinesis) 7
Tellus (telekinesis/telepathy) 6
Quislet (matter manipulation) 6
XS (superspeed) 6
Gates (teleportation) 6
Monstress (Superstrength) 6
Andromeda (Daxamite) 8
Magnetic Kid (Cosmic Boy's brother) 7
Polar Boy 6
Shikari (path finding ) 5
Kid Quantum (stasis fields) 6
Thunder (Captin Marvel powers) 8

Excellent, exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you so much Quislet, Esq. Anybody have more they want to add?

Question Quislet, Esq., did any of these individuals join the original Legion? Polar Boy did right? Anyone else? Please correct me if I am wrong. I am trying to sort out who belongs to which version of the Legion as I write the rules.

Prior to the threeboot, the most powerful Legionnaire was clearly Element Lad.

Game statistic-wise do you think his stats would be higher than most of the other Legionnaires?

I can see his physical and mental stats being on par with pretty much the crowd, power wise, he would be devastating, but how to rate him as compared to the others? I can see his power being a 7 (using my scale above for the game) though. What do you guys think? I originally game him a 6, along with Chemical King, Colossal Boy, Karate Kid, Light Lass, Star Boy, Sun Boy, Timber Wolf, Triplicate Girl, and Tyroc. Time to rethink?

Re. E-Lad -- I know of no other Legionnaire whose power contains the potential (even if unrealized) to create life, plus the ability to make himself (or anyone else) virtually invulnerable and near-immortal. He could disable Superboyman with a blink of the eye (green or gold kryptonite) or down Ultra Boy in his non-invulnerable state in a matter of seconds. Ditto most of the other Legionnaires who have any sort of physical vulnerability.

On the whole, I’d say characters whose abilities reflect the fundamental forces of Nature should be grouped in a class of their own because they’re barely tapping the true magnitude of the powers. Blok and Colossal Boy probably won’t get much stronger but theoretically these six or seven characters combined, wielding their powers to their utmost degree, could pose a grave threat to the universe::

Gravity - Star Boy, Light Lass.
Strong/Weak force (atomic-level bonding/unbonding)_ - Element Lad, Kid Quantum II, possibly Chemical King.
Electro-magnetic force – Cosmic Boy/Magnetic Kid, Lightning Lad/Lass (powers combined into a single force)

Add Wildfire’s anti-matter energy powers and they could produce another “Big Bang”. Of course, they’d need Brainiac 5 to show them how to do it.

I’d also separate out characters who have strike range – the ability to wield their powers at a distance -- from characters who need to make physical contact. So Karate Kid wouldn’t rate much higher than Bouncing Boy in my book. Blok, Colossal Boy and Timber Wolf are also extremely limited in this sense, and compared to the Fundamental Force gang, their brute powers are relatively easy to replace.

Yes, I see your point. I originally lumped characters together sort of from a bird's eye point of view and not closely examining each individual, which as I get further into the powers chapter I will keep making adjustments. I'm seeing some changes already I would like to make and you brought up some good points. I can see that I underestimated individuals with strong powers who were not physically or mentally as strong as some of the characters. Lumping the characters into four groups was done to implement another valuable game mechanic but I'm seeing significant limitations in the powers chapter as a result. Most of the final decision on which powers are deemed greater than others will be the based on the power effects (how many different ways a power may be used and how devastating those options are), so Legionnaires like Colossal Boy and Timber Wolf as an example would get bumped down when I redo my listing.

You guys are giving me exactly the type of information (point of view) I was looking for to take into consideration, thank you!

Quislet, Tellus, Magnetic Kid, & Polar Boy all from Pre-boot

Andromeda was in 5YL I think (Still pre-boot)

Kinetix, Gates, XS, Kid Quantum I & II, Monstress, Thunder, & Shikari all reboot

There was a recon of having Kid Quantum I being in the pre-boot Legion. However, IIRC, the character himself, other than the flashback recon, was not shown in the Legion.

I shall add the said individuals to the pre-boot list then, thank you.

Ok, another question....How about Valor? Reboot? Was he actually Mon-El or just a reboot replacement for Mon-El and not actually the same character? Or did Mon-El change his name to Valor? What sort of rating would I give Valor?

Valor is Mon-el in the same way that Livewire is Lightning Lad and Spark is Lightning Lass.

Ok, great, that makes things even easier. I was thinking that Valor was a replacement for Mon-El and actually a different person. Thanks for clairfying.

I assume that in regards to Valor/Mon-el, Livewire/Lightning Lad, Spark/Lightning Lass that the characters were essentially the same in overall power or were they either weaker or more powerful? Was this Kent Shakespeare person I have heard of a Legionnaire? How about someone named Chameleon Girl? Was she the girlfriend/wife of Colossal Boy? How would she be rated? Same as Chameleon Boy? What happened to Chameleon Boy?

I think they are of the same power level. Any fluctuation of power level is just temporary story matter.

As for Kent Shakespeare (aka Impulse) he was a member during the 5YL era. I did not read Legion then You will have to get that info from someone else.

Okey Dokey! You have been a tremendous help, thank you kind sir!

Regarding Chameleon Girl. That name came from the recent story in Action Comics. But the character Yera came from pre-boot. She had been duped by Imskian radicals to impersonate Shrinking Violet. While doing so, she and Colossal Boy fell in love and got married. She is from the same species as Chameleon Boy and in terms of power levels, she would rate the same. She was recruited by the radicals because she was an actress.

I'd rate Wildfire a solid eight as well. He's not got the Kryptonian power-suite, but he's unkillable, and composed of the energy version of anti-matter (which, back in the day, was one of the few things that could actually hurt Superboy/man, although I have no idea if that is still the case).

Many of the other Legionnaires don't rate as easily. Shadow Lass is a five or less as a somewhat-stronger-than-human woman who can see in the dark and is a competent martial artist, but her power has been shown sufficient to *blot out a star.*

Shockingly little has been done with her power. She plays 'Lights Out Lass' and beats people up who can't see her, but, in the future especially, a wall of light-absorbing darkness is as useful as Brainy's force fields against foes using laser weapons, and there's always the scary possibility that she can negate solar energy within one of those solar-powered class eight Kryptonians / Daxamites and leave them weak as humans before her 'merely' Talokkian strength.

Element Lad is even more off-balance. He's no fighter at all, and would rate well below five, save that his power has been shown as having a *planetary* scale, and able to affect any sort of change he wishes, from cloth to kryptonite, from oxygen to inertron. The threeboot Element Lad also turns the calcium in someone's teeth to phosphorus, a grotesque tactic that means that he can turn elements *in someone's body* into something else. He could turn the carbon in someone's body into hydrogen, and they would dissipate into a red mist, *regardless of their powers.* He's also recently demonstrated the ability to change something into a simple compound (sand), which means that he could turn a person into *water,* if he was in a killing mood. He's just incredibly powerful, and a version of Element Lad that is capable of the various stunts he's been shown doing could wave his hands and transform an invading army of Kryptonians into granite statues, if the mood took him.

And a quick pop in the face from even someone with normal human strength, and he's down. Triplicate Girl could easily spank him, as he doesn't use his powers against living people, by choice, and she could probably beat him up before he could turn the air around all three of her into saran wrap.

I remember reading that storyline (or most of it). Action comics was where I came across her the other night while reading in bed. I thought maybe she had more of a Legion past. How are we classifing the Action comic Legion? Another Legion all together? The preboot Legion growing up? Is it officially still unknown?

Officially unknown, but thought to be pre-boot

I have been giving this Element Lad issue some thought and I agree with the power level factor and what he could do with it, something which needs to be taken into consideration if a player decides to adopt Element Lad as one of their characters. So he will be getting a bump up. I'm going to re-structure some rules to allow having a incredible power yet more normal stats.

Bumbing Wildfire up to an 8 would be helpful. There are only a few others I've given that rating to.....the obvious ones....Superboy, Supergirl, Mon-El, and Ultra Boy, thus far. It appears that this Andromeda and Thunder are 8's as well based off of this discussion. I'm finding that the PCs want to create characters who are 7 or 8's of their own and adopt a 5 and a 6 (as you probably already know Set each player will have multiple characters they are responsible for, though each is only played one at a time).

I do think people have pointed out why it is hard to place a number on a character's power. So much depends on circumstances and the opponent.

In terms of sheer destructive capabilities, I think Element Lad and Sun Boy are easily the most powerful Legionnaires. In the last issue of LSH, Element Lad stopped an opponent by changing his oxygen to helium until he passed out. In Action, Sun Boy changed the operation of Earth's Sun. Both could destroy worlds without much trouble. (I should also include Star Boy in that mix, as he can basically cause the air on a planet collapse.)

I think Chemical King had similar capabilities, but they were never developed. Imagine being able to speed up cellular degeneration. He could cause quick oxidation to burn someone alive. Or he could make a sun die.

For others, it is more difficult, largely because specifics about certain characters have never been developed. For instance, why would Lightning Lass be less powerful than Lightning Lad? Timber Wolf in some versions has been listed as being nearly as strong than Ultra Boy. In others, he has had super-senses and/or healing powers. If all of those were the case, I think he would be above Karate Kid in terms of power. In terms of a close hand-to-hand battle, I would think both of those would be more powerful than a character with a "blasting power" who might not be able to use it at close range out of fear of injuring someone else.

PG, you start the best threads. I love having opinions solicited. I'm FULL of opinions!

I'm of the opinion that, generally, the Legionnaires are NOT allowed to live up to their truest potential.


A quickie rundown of the ADV-era through White Witch Legionnaires (all IMO with supporting comments) now, the rest later:


Cosmic Boy: 8 If he ever cuts loose on a Magneto-level.... man.

Lightning Lad: 7 Ever been shocked? It HURTS, man. Now imagine being struck by lightning.

Saturn Girl: 8 I'd say she could drop a Daxamite or Kryptonian at her best.

Triad: 5 Factor in her fighting ability, she rises to a 6.

Phantom Girl: 5 Now factor in a Vision-esque ablity to partially phase into people, and a Shadowcat-sque ability to disrupt machinery, and she's an easy 6-7.

Star Boy: 7 Easily one of the most not-used-to-full effect powers on the team.

Chameleon Boy: 5 Factoring in him taking on the properties of the objects he morphs into, and he rises to 7-8.

Colossal Boy: 7 IMO, Gim has never been allowed to 'show his stuff'. He's a frikkin' GIANT DUDE, dude!

Invisible Kid: 5 Mainly a stealth power here. Factor in his smarts, fighting skills and leadership and he gets an easy 6.

Brainiac 5: 7 And that's based on the power of his intellect alone. Never underestimate a smartie.

Violet: 5 Rises to 6 factoring in fightning skills.

Sun Boy: 7 A summer in Memphis will teach you the power of heat.

Bouncing Boy: 6 No one wants to be smacked with the large battering ram that is Chuck coming at you flight-ring propelled.

Ultra Boy: 8 Especially freed up by the flight ring.

Mon-El: 8 Daxamites and Kryptonians default to 8, I would imagine.

Matter-Eater Lad: 6 Ummm, this guy can EAT YOU. Did the Omniphagos teach us nothing? An evil Bismollian is a scary thought to me.

Element Lad: 8 I believe I wrote in PG's "Personalities" thread that Jan's addition to the team boosted their power-level astronomically.

Light Lass: 7 Gravity negation? Pure awesome. Ayla is possibly the # 1 most not-used-to-potential Legionnaire ever.

Dream Girl: 6 Based on her power alone, this lass will always be a step ahead of you. Factor in fighting skills and scientific smarts and we have a 7.

Princess Projectra: 6 But an easy 7 once she reaches Sensor Girl level. Possibly even an 8. Don't doubt that she could incapacitate a Daxamite or Kryptonian at that level.

Ferro Lad: 6 Colossus, Jr.

Karate Kid: 5 Considering he has no actual 'powers'. Factor in the martial skills and the past taking out of Daxamites and we have a 7.

Shadow Lass: 5 at face value. Using Set's criteria and her fighting skills, she's an easy 7. But *has* the solar/energy-negation been established ever? It should be.

Chemical King: 8 Hmmm. Condo might upstage Ayla as most badly used powers.

Timber Wolf: 6 If enhanced strength is part of the package, and I tend to think it is, then 7.

Wildfire: 8 One of the Legion's top guns. Always alongside Superboy, Mon-El and Ultra Boy in his heyday.

Dawnstar: 8 Incredible speed. Invulnerability (in space anyway). And who needs x-ray vision with super-tracking powers? What we have here is a Daxamite sans super-strength, and the Legion's toughest non-Super/Daxamite lass.

Tyroc: 8 Think screaming Scarlet Witch. The guy alters reality, people! And he space-rawks elf boots. Quite a power indeed.

Blok: 6 I'd have given him a 7, but Roxxas showed that he's more strength and less invulnerability.

White Witch: Mysa's an odd case. I'd say she ranges from 5 to 8 depending completely on the circumstances.



It seems I tend to maybe think more of the Legionnaires than has been shown in the actual book, maybe... but these guys are supposed to be the BEST.

I agree that it is difficult to place numbers on individuals in regards to powers. After reading all 12 of the hardcover archive books we see a signficiant flux in power from one character to the next. In my opionion what a Legionnaire is capable of accomplishing is based on the needs and whims of that particular writer.

I don't know how many times (especially in the early stories) I've said to myself "So and so wouldn't have been beat or wouldn't have done that because they would have done this instead". I don't recall the specific story but I remember reading one where they were chasing someone on foot through the halls of their clubhouse and lost track of them around a corner. Me, personally, I would have used my flight ring.

But alas, for a roleplaying game sacrifces must be made, stats must be assigned, powers must be rated. I think the most difficult thing is trying to fit them into such a small scale. As already mentioned this is being done to conform to another vital game mechanic. If I find a way to broaden the scale without sacrificing the other game mechanic I will.

In the meantime I hope people are kind enough to give me their input so I can compare it to my ideas. I've already been convinced that a couple of individuals need to be boosted upwards and so they shall be. I hope that questionable characters can get further nailed down through discussion.

Wouldn't Chemical King fall roughly into the same level of potential when attacking a person? Couldn't he do stuff like speed up the artery hardening process and cause a heart attack, or block the flow of blood so a person passed out, or speed up the aging process in their muscles so they become very weak? Of course all of that is dependent on Chemical King having expert control
of his powers (and a writer who knows their science) and knowing when to stop so that he doesn't take a life.

Back in the Earth War saga, at the end, the whole Legion is facing Mordru. Everyone is throwing all their powers at him. And Princess Projectra projects a wolf's head. I thought "Why doesn't she project the illusion of a coffin of earth about to entomb him?"

It's not even about opinions. He just likes being solicited.

And yet, most industrial metals we use *today* aren't ferrimagnetic, and in the future, someone with 'magneto' powers would be handicapped by the lack of ferrimagnetic metals, in a world using 30th century synthetics along the lines of carbon-fibers and ceramics and kevlar and whatever as structural materials. In comic-books, magnetic characters can do insane crap like affect the iron in someone's blood (monatomic, no magnetic field, wouldn't work) and make 'magnetic force fields' and silly stuff like that. If Cosmic Boy could do that, he'd be like Magneto, yes, but Magneto doesn't have magnetic powers, he has 'do whatever the hell the writer wants him to do' powers.

In the Universo Project she shut down Mon-El and Ultra Boy in a second. Universo freaked, "The two strongest men in the universe and you *looked at them* and they fell down?"

She wouldn't even need to have Kitty Pryde powers tacked on. Using her own ability to phase specifically, and to phase other objects partially, she could reach into anyone, even a Kryptonian, and pull their heart out of their chest by causing the heart to go out of phase with the rest of the body. Not that she would...

Yup, Shooter is working nicely on that 'though.

And anything he can do, Ayla can do backwards. If he could crush someone, she could send them 'to the moon, Alice!'

I'd be wary of blanket raising of power levels. Karate Kid, while incredible, has no powers. Bouncing Boy, while indestructible, belongs at a lower level of power than most of his teammates.

Since PG has chosen 5 as her 'lowest-powered Legionnaire' ranking, leaving 1-4, presumably, for non-superhumans (or truly hapless sorts like Ron-Karr or Double-Header or Antennae Lad), the exact 'power ranking' is going to be very fuzzy at best, as we've only got ranks 5 to 8 to work with, and everyone from Triplicate Girl to Mon-El has to fit in there somewhere.

In Mutants and Masterminds, a standard Kryptonian/Daxamite would start at power level 10, and potentially up to 15 or so, if at pre-Crisis levels (or with the centuries of experience and scientific skills of someone like Mon-El). Someone like Triplicate Girl or Shadow Lass or Shrinking Violet or Phantom Girl or Dream Girl or Invisible Kid would be PL 6, on the other hand, as they are 'one-trick ponies' who have only a single power (no matter how awesome they might be with it) and some decent fighting skills.

The Legion has never been a 'balanced' group and the majority of them are one-trick ponies (even if, in the case of someone like Chameleon, it's a really good trick).

You are correct in assuming that the power levels of 1-4 are for super powered characters below Legion standards. Non-superheroe beings have a power level (actually called Status Score) of 0. Actually I kind of like the term power level.....hmmmm.....

Set....Me knowing that you are familiar with roleplaying games, if your interested in discussing the power level issue and maybe helping me broaden it and still find a way to retain the game mechanic which is binding it in place, let me know. Perhaps you will see an outlet I'm missing. Unless these rules change, I will have to keep some at power level 5, the question is balancing them as much as possible and still ringing true to their potential. I'm guessing in the game it can be hit or miss as to how well the players can use (exploit) the powers.