Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Heroes of other worlds?

Spectrum comes from the world of Korugar, and is descended from the legendary Sinestro, bearing a strong resemblance to his forebear, although choosing to dress in a simple white tunic and breeches, appearing more like a monk's attire than those of a champion or hero.

Spectrum has the power to emanate colored light along the emotional spectrum, evocative of the power rings worn by his famous ancestor, but he cannot create force constructs, or perform any of the other amazing feats of a power ring.

Instead, when he channels the light of the emotional spectrum, it both fills him and all around him with the emotional energy of that color. When he glows red, all around him become filled with anger and rage, and when he glows blue, all around him feel a sense of perseverance and renewed confidence, while a yellow aura fills all with dread and terror, and a violet aura causes all to feel an overwhelming sense of love for all around them.

To call upon this inner light, he has to surrender to the feelings he is projecting, whether it be fear or wrath, determination or love. His eyes change to the color of the predominant emotion he is feeling, and the light shines brightly from his body. After a cruel foe attempted to shut down his powers by blinding him, he learned that he did not need his eyes to project the light of the emotional spectrum, and after having his eyes medically regenerated, continues to serve as a champion to the people of Korugar, quelling disturbances by bringing compassion to those who rise up in anger, or instilling courage and strength of will to those who despair in the face of natural disaster or hardship.

i love this interpretation of the emotional spectrum. i also like that its a descendent of Senistro.

Thanks! I think, with Dex Sinister (with a kind of power ring) and Uinseach of the Leaping Shadows (a member of a 'Green Lantern race') and this guy (both a 'GL race' and with powers related to the emotional spectrum!), I'm gonna step away from the Green Lantern well for a bit.

Too much tapping of that well, I think.

Omni and Set, I am impressed by your respective abilities to re-imagine Universes. This is a little derivative, but you might like it.

In a parallel dimension, orbiting the star they call Shamash, is the Earth-like world of Oceania. It is remarkably Earth-like, although not exactly a parallel Earth.

The greatest hero of Oceania is Hyperman, rocketed to Oceania as an infant, he conceals his identity as the newspaper reporter Chester King.

Fred Hembeck’s heartfelt summary of the old Superman Silver-Age tale is here: http://www.ign.com/articles/2005/08/23/the-fred-hembeck-show-episode-24

But there are other super-heroes on Oceania.

1. Bob White lost his parents to a criminal’s handgun at an early age. He dedicated his life to learning criminology, martial arts, and a hundred other skills. Ready at last to begin his campaign against crime, he stood at the window of his mansion, gazing out into the night. “Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot,” he mused. “I will become a… a…”

Just then, he was startled by the reflection in the window of his faithful butler’s shadow. “I will become a fearsome Spectre!” he resolved.

Now, as the green-and-gray-clad Spectre, he fights crime with his sidekick, the acrobatic teen Dirk Grantham, the scarlet-clad Deadman.

Spectre-cave, Spectre-mobile, Spectre-plane, Spectarangs, and all.


2. Given a ring of power by the Sentinels of the Galaxy, test pilot Howard Johnson battles evil with the green energies of the Flash.

3. Princess Deborah left the Assyrian Amazons of hidden Paradise Valley to join the “Man’s World” as the protector of right, Manhunter, wearing the purple-and-gold of her adopted nation’s flag.

4. When J’yym J’ymzz was accidentally transported to Oceania from Marduk, the fourth planet, he adopted a blonde-haired, fair-skinned identity as the green-and-blue-clad Superman. And as black police detective Jim James, he has an unfair advantage over the criminal element with his Mardukite telepathy, shape-shifting, and a host of other powers.

5. His powers granted by a lab accident, Brett Andrews is secretly the super-speedster Black Lightning

6. Shipwrecked on a tropical island, millionaire Oscar Quest was forced to learn to survive in the jungle by making his own bows and arrows. Now he fights crime in the metropolis of Stellar City as a mysterious green-clad hero. On his first excursion, he thwarted a bank robbery. The bank guard took one look at him and asked, “Who do you think you are? Robin Hood?” Oscar replied, “Just call me Robin—I’m no hood.” His partner is teen-aged Rick Hales, Mr. Scarlet.

7. Often joining Oscar is Drew Lincoln, the martial artist who calls herself Black Orchid.

8. Kyrzn and Shyba Hyl, members of the Bat-Police Force of Thothagar, they assumed the dual identities of Carson and Sheba Hill, and the super-heroes Batman and Batwoman

9. The human incarnation of the Spirit of Vengeance, is the late John Carmichael, known by his proper name of Naqamael.

How does this relate to the Legion? When Chester King and Lydia Long’s daughter Leah gets lost in time and space, she shows up in the 31st-century as Hypergirl.

Ooh, some interesting shuffling of characters and backstories! I'm particularly fond of the Assyrian Amazon, Manhunter (and the purple-and-gold colors, more often associated with Wonder Woman's arch-foe, Circe), but the 'Bat-Police of Thothagar' are also fun sounding. Also loving the fourth planet being named after the Babylonian Marduk, instead of the Roman Mars!

Perhaps Oceania has an Aquaman analogue who is instead a member of a subterranean civilization of 'morlocks' or 'mole-people' that sank into the earth in prehistory? Using his people's evolved ability to manipulate seismic vibrations, their prince-champion Vibe represents the kingdoms of the Lost World as a hero to the surface folk!

That is some nifty re-imagining....I kind of wanna see Spectre and Deadman as well as the bat-police of Thothagar now!

Agreed! Klar Ken, you did a really fun reimagination of these characters.

i'd love to see more of the Bat Police of Thothagar as well!

One thing I like, as mentioned above, is the use of non-classical mythologies / cultures, such as Assyrian Amazons or a 'Mars' named after the Babylonian Marduk.

Finding out that the bat-Thanagarians, instead of having some nebulous ties to ancient Egypt, instead were tied to the Mayans, and might have served as an inspiration for the bat-god Camazotz, could be funky. (I can't think of any other cultures that had a prominent bat-god, so Mayans it is!)

Well, I am notoriously unartistic, but here are Hero Machines of the Spectre and Deadman the Boy Wonder of Oceania:





And the Batman and Batwoman of Thothagar

If Oceania doesn't have an Aquaman, what planet would?

Ah, but our planet is named Terra, and is 76% covered by water.

Perhaps 'Oceania' is 76% covered with earth, and has smaller oceans than 'Terra?'

Either way, a 'mole man' type hero, from a mythical kingdom that sank into the depths of the earth, would be a neat twist on the Atlantis legends of our world.

Plus the absurdity of a hero named Vibe in the big boy Leagues tickles my funny bone. It's gone so well in the past, after all...

But an underground analogue of Aquaman would have the ability to tunnel rapidly through the soil, breathe dirt, and be able to telepathically communicate with moles, voles, gophers, worms, dung beetles...

And could not survive more than one hour at a time above ground...

Terra-Man!

I missed the part about the Aqua-analogue being underground instead of underwater. I just saw the incongruity of a place named Oceania being without an Aquaman and had to comment.

So, a couple of pages ago, I plotzed down a five-woman team of Competalians , and the day *after* posting, I remembered that these Competalians were designed to be 'DC's Inhumans,' complete with the occasional exotic individual appearances as a result / side-effect of the procedure that empowers them.

So my imagination immediately set to work jazzing up their appearances;

Miss Behave, like most of the Ladies of Misschief, is humanoid, with yellow skin decorated with zebra like stripes of bold red. In place of hair, she has a gigantic mane of feathers, red, orange and yellow, that attaches to her head, where a human would have hair, as well as additional manes attaching to her shoulders and hips, a smaller triangle of feathers attached to her breastbone and longer plume of feathers at the base of her spine, trailing from a short triangular tail-like structure. Her build is slightly more slender than the average, and she has three long graceful fingers and three toes (as well as 'thumbs') on each hand and foot, each with a prominent nail, colored bright red. She wears gauzy outfits that are sheer and mostly translucent, the better to show off her exotic coloration and feathery body adornment.

Miss Direction is a hairless humanoid female with pale blue skin. Unlike the source picture, her body surface appears to be covered with hexagonal patterns, made of raised ridges of skin and cartiledge, appearing as little more than patterns across most of her body, and shrinking in size in finer areas, such as her face and fingers, but growing to larger scale and definition atop the crown of her head, giving it a slightly unnatural / mechanical look, as if her body was pieced together from hundreds of differently sized hexagonal sub-units.

Miss Fire is a humanoid woman of apparent African ancestry, based on her skin tones and facial structure (suggesting that Competalians, like many other humanoid aliens, share a common ancestry with humans). While completely human in appearance, she also is hairless (having burned her hair off in an accident) and covers her shaved head with an ungainly looking spikey headdress of golden metal, from which dangle dozens of strands of tiny semi-precious gemstones of every dazzling color, shape and size, in place of 'hair.' She prefers to wear green and gold outfits cut asymmetrically, or in odd patterns (long baggy trousers, no sleeves *or* mini-skirt with long baggy sleeved blouse), as well as some thick clunky jewelry (more akin to pectorals, torcs or bracers than necklaces or bracelets).

Miss Fortune has skin so pale as to be translucent, showing off her pale violet musculature, her flourescent green arteries and her darker purple-black veins in a garish and phantasmagorical display. Her hair is full and thick, like a stylized mane, and stands slightly aware from her body, holding itself in place via a slight electrostatic shock. The hair on the side facing those she is looking at is bright blue, and viewing her from behind, the outer surfaces of the hairs are a bold red. (The curvature of her preferred hairstyle results in those in front of her seeing the blue hair framing her face, and the outer edges of the 'mane' being bold red, framing the blue inner hair). Despite it's fragile appearance, her skin is a tougher and more elastic than it looks, and Miss Fortune prefers to wear form fitting metal body ornamentation, in place of cloth, the feel of which she finds irritating.

Miss Take appears to be a member of an aquatic species, with light green skin with bright blue ovals of countershading (and smaller patterns of blue dots trailing along her limbs). She has fin-like structures atop her head, along the backs of her calves, and the outer sides of her forearms (starting just below the pinky finger and extending to the elbows). These fins can fold back, or stand out, as she desires, and fine anemone like strands of 'hair' (that rise up and begin waving around when she's underwater, but otherwise lie flat against her skull) reside on the sides of her head, pale brown / tan in color and growing on both sides of her head, divided into two areas by her central head-fin. Tan coral-like structures, the same color as her 'hair,' sprout from her shoulders, temple, brow, ribs, and hips, as well as the back of her head. Despite her aquatic appearance, she cannot breathe underwater, but can hold her breath for about 45 minutes, safely ingest saltwater and is an excellent swimmer, often wearing little more than a dark blue one-piece bathing suit and some sort of gauzy wrap around cloth in translucent seafoam green.

Where's the fun of having a bunch of exotic 'Inhuman' like aliens, if they all look more or less like humans, after all!

So here are a couple.

Officer Ffolx of Carggg:
Arona Ffolx is the descendant of a Green Lantern. Although the power ring is long gone, her great-grandmother’s power battery has been a family heirloom for scores of years. In fact, it served as a night-light for little Arona in her crib.

What no one could know was that over the years, the power battery had degraded, and Arona was exposed to a corrupted green radiation as she slept.

As a very young child, it was discovered that when she triplicated, two of her selves were surrounded in a pale greenish glow, almost invisible by day under the bright triple suns of Carggg, but clearly apparent indoors, and especially at night. Doctors could find no physical problem, but still, it set her apart as different.

Then came the episode. One day, as the pre-teen Arona was triplicating, her father walked suddenly into the room. Surprised, she turned her attention on him— a viridian bolt lept from her chest, striking her father, and Arona’s manifesting luminous duplicates assumed his appearance.

Following the family tradition, Arona became a member of the Cargggan Science Police. Her peculiarity serves her well. She merely has to concentrate on an opponent, and in a flash of light she has created two duplicates of her target. Most Cargggans are terribly confused as their three selves face Officer Ffolx and two copies of themselves. She is, like all CSPs, well-trained in tri-jitsu, and so has a distinct advantage, even against a much stronger opponent.

Her powers are limited: she can duplicate beings of about human size or smaller: a wolf or panther is within her abilities, but not an elephant. She can also duplicate inanimate objects, such as a target’s clothing or weapons, but also say, a tree, bicycle or desktop computer. As purely inanimate objects, her duplicates do not have the ability to move. Otherwise her duplicates are entirely under her control—that is, controlled by her triple consciousness, just like ordinary Cargggans.

Looking-Glass Lass of Tharn:
Like many of the inhabitants of Tharn, the Sorceror’s World, her true name is a secret. She is commonly known, however, as Alis Klogsong (an anagram of “looking-glass”). Her magical abilities are limited. Aside from the ordinary, daily magic which is necessary in order to interact with Sorceror’s World technology, she can only perform one spell—a sort of magical “talent”: she can instantaneously rotate any object by 180°.

This is extraordinarily confusing for living beings who are rotated: one might find oneself suddenly facing back-to-front, or upside-down, or, most confusing of all, mirror-reversed, in which (from one’s own point of view) left has become right and right has become left throughout the whole universe.

She is the youngest member of her local town Coventry; this is somewhat analogous to a combination City Council and School Board, here on 21st-century Earth.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of such single-talented sorcerers on Tharn.

Officer Ffolx (cool name, btw!) seems like she'd be much more effective off of Cargg, where she could manifest two duplicates of her (generally single) opponents! Do the duplicates have the abilities / skills / knowledge of their 'hosts,' or merely the appearance? (They obviously *also* would have her knowledge, if she can use trijutsu with her dupes, but if she, say, ran into a Braalian crook, and was able to double-team with with a pair of magnokinetic dupes, in addition to her own self, that could rock!)

The last line in Looking-Glass Lass' writeup, "There are probably hundreds of thousands of such single-talented sorcerers on Tharn." is inspiring!

I had meant to write up a Sorcerer's Seven team from the Sorcerer's World (less a 'superhero team' and more of a 31st century gathering of mystically inclined folk, like the motley crew John Constantine often hangs out with), but, other than the Thanagarian priest and the Orandan mage-knight, never really got around to it.

Neat ideas!

My concept of Tharn, the Sorcerer’s World:
Tharn is a world of seven continents, six in the northern hemisphere and seven in the southern.
It is home to ten billion sorcerers, about one-fiftieth of whom are of Terran origin.
Alien races and climates range from the Star Yeti in the hyperborean mountains to the Andorran Nagas in the equatorial desert lowlands.
Important mostly-human metropolitan areas are Nuevo Paulo, Emerald City, the Oxford Mage School, and Merlinopolis.
Gateways exist all over the planet connecting to Faerth (Fairyland).

Magical characters are like popcorn. Once I start, I just can’t stop. Remember that for most of them, these are not their actual names:

Some are based on DC Continuities:
Clavanatus – He is probably not really a middle-aged Captain Marvel, but he likes people to think he is.
Marveiia—Clavanatus’ protégé
Lgxqzryp: A half-human, half-Zrfffn, he can transmute any object into another by speaking his name backwards.
Qumbo of Xeen—A kilometer-tall giant with a magic ring which reduces him to only seven feet tall.
Zatamazzar—When he speaks his spells backwards, he projects illusions
The Indigo Warlock—A member of the Indigo Tribe, he is a soul of great power and deep compassion, a combination of Superman, Green Lantern and the Dali Lama. Tall and slender, with white skin and hair, green eyes, blue sclera, blue lips, and a perpetual beatific smile.
A thousand years ago, he was the Joker.

Some are adapted from literature:
Tolkien the Hobbit, Master of the Comfortable Magicks
Allison Wonderland
Ozmarda
Ythorod the Witch-Killer
Xorpia the Shoggoth

Some are originals:
Doctor Tengu
Elwin Elviston
Jon Falstaff, the Food Mage
Volallier & Chanticleer
Sidheane, the Composite Elemental
Grimoire, a sentient computer
Gwendolyn the Vermilion
Reparo the Silver
Mite the Dwarf and his magic axe
Stardust Spacedevil
Captain Wizard
Odd Duck
Hexxess the Enchanter
Kashaph the Potionmaster
Chorus Celeste, the Occultress

Some take the names of former great wizards:
Babushka Baba Yaga (not the original)
Lung Mo (not the original)
Strega Befana, the Gingerbread Witch (not the original)
Gwalchavad (not the original)
Groucho Marx (not the original) (Actually a Coluan student of sorcery who has embraced absurdism—blond afro, derby hat, rumpled trenchcoat. Performs his spells with a magic wand in the shape of a bulb horn. Inventor of the Fuzzy Pink Bunny Slippers of Invisibility.)

That is absurd, calling yourself Groucho while dressing like Harpo.

Then again it could just be one of the more minor data errors stemming from the Great Crisis of Historical Records (do they still even use that?)

Well, naturally I MEANT Harpo. He even throws a Gookie occasionally.
But now that made the mistake, I think I will leave it as canon.

The most interesting things in comics have always been the rationalizations of mistakes.

I got a giggle from his mention of the Dali Lama, myself.

Salvadore Dali mixed with the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism? Yikes!

Seriously, though, a thousand year old Joker as a reformed enlightened leader of the order of compassion is a pretty out there idea, but I like it.

Kurt Busiek would have nothing to write about, if not for unknotting tangled continuity and making up stuff to make it all work out!

Roy Thomas liked to do a fair bit of that too didn't he? Or am I mixing up the two?

• Salvador Dali Lama sounds like a Doom Patrol villain.
• At least its better than Dolly Llama.
• And Harpo classically wears a top hat, not a derby. The derby belonged to Chico.
• To avoid, or possibly enhance, any further confusion, here are the pictures:


GROUCHO MARX circa 1940


<strike>HARPO MARX</strike> “GROUCHO MARX” circa 3013

I would be pleased to see him standing in the background next time a DC artist re-visits the Sorcerer’s World.


* As far as Officer Ffolx is concerned, since her duplicates are partially created by green lantern energy, I would imagine that duplicate Lightning Lads would shoot green lightning, and duplicate Sun Boys would shoot green sun energy. However, I don’t believe memories and skills would pass over; so her powers would be pretty much useless against, say, the White Witch or Karate Kid. On the other hand, she ought to be pretty formidable against four out of five of the Fatal Five—but Validus is just too big for her to duplicate.
(On the other hand, I would suppose that she could duplicate a normal-sized Colossal Boy, and they could grow to a giant size otherwise beyond her limits.)


A fuller rendering of the Indigo Warlock’s origin story:

Superman, at one time, created a serum which gave temporary super-powers to ordinary Earthlings. Lana Lang and Lois Lane were each at one time recipients of this serum.



Eventually, Lex Luthor reverse-engineered the formula. At a particular time when Lex was incapacitated, and the Joker was out of Arkham, the Joker broke into Luthor’s secret vault at Lexcorp and stole the superpower formula.

Immediately upon ingesting it, he used his newly acquired super-senses to discover Superman’s secret identity—and in his haste to confront the Man of Steel as Clark Kent, blasted holes through several buildings, incidentally killing a half-dozen people. Not that he regretted it.

You have to think of this in the future as we know it, possibly on the other side of Kingdom Come. (if it ever happened) Clark is going gray, but not yet retirement age. He is very experienced. He quickly takes the Superman vs. Super-Joker battle off-Earth, to prevent further destruction. Fittingly for the Joker, they end up on one of the moons of Uranus. Hoo-ha, does J have fun with that one. (Probably Oberon or Titania. There is enough of an atmosphere for the Joker to taunt Superman mercilessly.) But there is no real contest: not only is the Joker inexperienced with super-powers, but the super-serum only empowers humans to sub-Kryptonian levels. All Superman has to do is keep the Joker from hurting anyone until the serum wears off.

However, as the Joker mocks him, Superman realizes that his friends and family are no longer safe. Even without powers, the Joker is a homicidal maniac. He would unquestionably escape from Arkham again. He could probably ultimately engineer an escape from the Phantom Zone or Kandor. And he is enough of a chemist that he could ultimately reproduce the super-serum again. Superman comes to a fateful decision: after all these years, he must do what Batman could never do, and kill the Joker.

All of this internal dialog has been occurring as the Joker has been making effort after effort to get past Superman, and back to Earth, where he can cause some real trouble. As he makes his decision, he grapples with the Joker again, this time ready to break his neck…

There is a flash of indigo light. Superman is knocked away from his opponent, crashing through miles of rock. An Indigo Lantern has appeared, fighting on the side of the Joker, turning the tide in his favor. The Joker stares enviously at the indigo-tipped staff.

“If that thing can do that to Superman, I have to have one,” he cries.

The Indigo Lantern proffers the staff. The Joker takes it, just as Superman returns.

“I could not let you break you oath,” the Indigo Lantern addresses Superman. “I could not let you kill.”

He then dissolves into dust. And the Proselyte Entity takes over the Joker.

The Joker’s last words to Superman, before he leaves for the depths of interstellar space, are:

“Kill me. Please kill me. Nothing is funny anymore.”

And then the mad personality that once was the Joker is gone. There is only the Indigo Warlock.

The indigo light has preserved the sub-Kryptonian super-powers the Joker had at the time he became an Indigo Lantern. Over the years, the green has been bleached from his hair and nails: he is pure white, except for the bluish coloring in his eyes and lips. It has also made him essentially immortal, or at least very long-lived. However, should he ever be allowed to give up the staff, he would crumble into dust, just as his predecessor.

Few people know his history. I would suppose that Sodam Yat either knows or suspects. Mordru probably knows, but doesn’t care.

The Joker is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands. The Indigo Warlock has, over the years, saved the lives of billions. But one does not balance the other. They are simply independent facts. It is as if these actions were attributable to two different individuals. The Indigo Warlock is the unwilling tool of the Proselyte Entity, nothing more.

By coincidence, there is actually a font available called Indigo Joker.


More heroes of the Sorcerer’s World:
Amulette, the Collector (specializes in classical fairy-tale gear- seven-league boots, water of life, ever-filled purses, poisoned apples, etc.)

Gaziyth, originally of the Obsidian Folk of Stoneworld: a living Philosopher’s Stone

Vrolokina, a vampire mosquito-fairy
Due to an unfortunate incident with a Fountain of Youth, the immortal Jason Blood is temporarily a teen-ager. Living on the Sorcerer’s World. And bound to a teen Etrigan. Again.

Utmylgh, a Gil’Disphan sorcerer whose magic doesn’t make sense to those with a terrestrial mindset.

Coppelia, the doll girl: A "doll elemental" like Brother Power the Geek, she originally manifested on Daxam, so is virtually invulnerable. However, she hits like a rag doll.

I love these Sorceror's World ideas! Amulette and Coppelia sound fun, and a Gil'Dishpan sorceror sounds full of creepy/awesome potential!