Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Duo Damsel or Duplicate Damsel

Wasn't her survival explained by the fact that she had different personalities, and that these differences among her selves allowed her to survive? I still don't see how she would suddenly be able to create new duplicates without outside intervention. It seems like too far an extension of her natural Carggite powers.

We also don't know enough about Thora's method of power-up to say that she simply unlocked an inherent ability of Lu's.

Threeboot Lu is a different matter, of course.

Depends what we're talking about. If we're just talking about them going into shock - triggered by the pain/sensation of fatal injury, like Postboot Triad-Purple & Orange reacting to Neutral getting beaten up from afar; or Saturn Girl broadcasting the experience of Monstress' death to the Lost team - then quite possibly that would work as an explanation.

OTOH, if there's some actual, physical necessity about them periodically recombining*, because the split-bodies simply aren't capable of surviving indefinitely, then thats a different matter.

*postboot again, B5 suggests there is when Neutral's in a coma; and Orange & Purple later say they could survive for "hours" while Neutral's being held by C.O.M.P.U.T.O. - in the same story, B5 further suggests that distance weakens them


There is also a third explanation - it isn't an inherent ability she had from birth, but some sort of mutation Thora generated, which became dormant, but still existed and could be reactivated later, as Ayla's electrical powers were both pre- and postboot.

Was the personality thing a later explanation for her survival? If Lu was sitting there right after the Computo attack, explaining it that way then fine. But if it’s something tagged on later then I probably prefer the Thora approach.

Not that having so many duplicates wouldn’t bring its own share of problems, but it strengthens Lu, rather than weakens her overall.

IIRC, the "different personalities allowed you to distribute the pain amongst your bodies better" explanation was hatched during 5YL by Brainy. Before 5YL there was no indication that the Lus had diff. personalities.

Reboot is right, that the recombination of the 3 bodies seems to have had diff. implications Preboot vs. Postboot. In the Postboot, it was explicit that Lu (and other Carggites) had to recombine to survive. Preboot, because Computo happened before Thora, the more likely explanation is that Carggites didn't have to recombine to survive BUT the shock of a body dying was usually enough to kill the others. Additional evidence - in the Action story where one Lu body becomes evil because of Nam'lor's influence, Lu's two bodies were separated for weeks. Also, evil Lu never once said she needed to recombine with good Lu to survive - she just said she needed good Lu as a shield to escape punishment.

The Thora explanation wouldn't work to explain how Lu survived, but COULD work to explain why Lu is suddenly able to generate so many bodies (I doubt she'd ever have been able to do that if Thora hadn't powered her up before). Maybe the catalyst for the re-emergence was the weakening of barriers between universes during Lo3W.

Funnily enough I just read an issue where Lu splits the pain across multiple bodies back in a Superboy issue (round about Tyroc’s arrival probably), so it could be the 5YG folks picked it up a little from there.

I agree that the indications were that three bodies could survive indefinitely and who could forget evil Lu. Poor Nam Lor.

For me coming at it as Thora pushing the potential of her female victims, having multiple bodies is exactly why Lu keeps surviving. It’s because there aren’t just three in there. There’s three hundred. So, Lu, although in a lot of pain when one dies, isn’t killed by it and can recover. It seems mostly the mental anguish of believing she only had three bodies that stays with her.

I do agree that there’s little chance Lu would have been able to do this before. I’d argue it’s very possible that she wouldn’t have been able to do it after Thora, as she simply wouldn’t have know she had that capacity. Thora acting not only as a catalyst for that story, but also as a seed for where Lu could possibly reach.

I suppose it's possible that Lu's some sort of mutant Carggite with over three hundred dormant bodies, but I still think it more likely that Thora somehow altered or enhanced her powers. Picking up on your last paragraph above, it was because of Thora that Lu first had that capacity, and it lay dormant in Lu after Thora.

I guess we just see two different sides on this one.

Picking up on a point Blacula made way back when, it would be poor if they were just to be cannon fodder. But how to use them effectively?

Madrox: Lots of different lifes and personalities. But that has been so well established that it would look like a blatant..um duplicate.

Ultimate Madrox: Cannon fodder

Rose Wylde: From Luther Arkwright. She has a presence on many parallel earths. One version, on a key Earth, is in contact with the others. This is certainly empathically, and possibly telepathically although there are communication devices. Each parallel earth is strikingly different. Combining that with a Duplicate Damsel power to summon those other selves would be interesting.

An issue would be that the selves are too different form the Legion environment, and a big jump form having a couple of different coloured uniforms. DC would love it as they could sell umpteen toy variations:)

I did a search for others with this power and oh boy there are loads, barely any of who I'm familiar with. Here's the link to see if there are any other ideas from them:-

From Powerlisting

The most effective way I can think of is if Lu can gain the knowledge/skills that her duplicates learn while away. That would certainly up her learning curve a lot!

Razsolo posited (in his very excellent postLo3W fanfiction) that Lu's selves are actually "possible" Lus from alternate points in time which she summons whenever she duplicates. Since they're only "possible" selves, she doesn't feel any empathic connection or feedback when they die. And dying won't play havoc with the timestream or anything like that.

There was the thread about limiting Brainy. Having Multitask Miss on the team would help.

No if she can learn while the other selves are away, she would be trying to control a huge number of reactions/ emotions simultaneously which may make her prone to being distant and under stress a lot.

If she absorbs then as they return then the flood of impressions could be overwhelming.

Hmmm. She'd have to be like Madrox then, who seems to have no "connection" to his dupes as they can wander around wherever they like.

One way to get past the flood of impressions is to have her absorb only skills, but I'm not sure how that could happen without her absorbing their memories too. Madrox absorbs skills and memories both right?

I think so, but I don't think there are any long term implications of that. A bigger X-Factor reader than I can comment more accurately. But whenever I've dipped into the title, he's essentially the same person. There could be an initial mood swing that's overcome/merged and that it.

I posited once a 'Quantum Lu' who summoned versions of herself from other alternate universes, which would also mean that Classic Lu, Reboot Lu and Threeboot Lu would all be 'quantum entangled' and able to summon each other.

Other versions would be one in which Cargg was settled by gorillas, or some sort of saurian race, or was taken over by Roboticans ('Trinary Lu' would be three borg like Luornu's) or Cargg is a planet (like Orando or Avalon) that embraced magic instead of science and she's a one-woman 'coven' of three spellcasters who use combined ritual magic, etc.

But that would make Lu pretty much a 'Dial H for Hero' sort of character, constantly pulling new powers out of her butt by calling up alternate universe versions of herself with the power necessary for plot-of-the-day... Narratively, it would end up being a terrible idea. (Although I love the idea of the three main continuities 'Lus' being quantum entangled somehow, and being the touchstone that the Classic, Reboot and Threeboot Legions use to stay connected! Luornu of Three Worlds! It could even be retconned in, that Classic Lu's new 'Duplicate Damsel' power is a side-effect of meeting Threeboot Luornu, who is one of millions of Luornu's, in her home dimension, and that the 'power up' is just a reflection of classic Lu somehow evolving / changing to be more like her Threeboot 'sister.' Learning to communicate with her Reboot and Threeboot analogues would follow from that discovery.)

For multiple peeps, I'm a big fan of Madrox, and Silent Majority (from the short-lived 'Force of July'). Others I remember are Flashback (from Omega Flight) and Timeshadow (from a group of mutants who worked for Apocalypse called the Alliance of Evil, of which only Cargill/Frenzy ever went anywhere as a character). Ditto, from Gen 14. Multiplex, a Firestorm villain who originally split into smaller versions of himself (IIRC), but has been later shown splitting into multiple full sized selves (and having super-strength, to boot, making him far more useful than the average duplicator).

Various other characters *can* duplicate, as part of much larger powersets, but that's not their thing, like Swamp Thing or the Growing Man.

There was also that multiplying cheerleader from the Sky High movie.

Luornu was definitely the first duplicator, 'though, as with so many other Legion firsts. The X-folk may have made telepaths and characters with magnetic powers and big metal dudes and feisty animal-themed scrappers with pointy haircuts household names, but the Legion got there first!

As for the 'multiple personalities' thing, I don't like it. Carggites aren't human triplets, and, IMO, especially in a team that already has some Winathian twins in it, it makes them less unique and cool if they are just three different people who can merge into one. (And feels even *less* like a super-power, and more like a weird quirk, like Double-Header pretending that being mid-mitosis and having two bickering heads counts as a 'super-power'. While I could see one person being able to split into three people could be a sellable power, showing up as three siblings who have the mutant power to merge into each other and be one person with normal human strength, etc. is kind of like, 'yeah, whatever, even if we were desperate, we aren't hiring *three Legionnaires with the 'power' to turn into one non-powered person* today*')

Plus Madrox has already explored that well, IMO, better than Lu would ever be able to, apart from her getting her own solo book. Just as I don't like the idea of Timber Wolf being all Wolverined-up, or Sun Boy acting like the Human Torch, I wouldn't like Lu being made more Madrox-y.

I DID like the explanation given in the Postboot for why she had multiple personalities though. Lu's grandma said, they evolved 3 different personalities so they could experience the world with 3 different perspectives, and blend them back into one whole. I guess this implies that a merged Carggite does gain the memories of all 3 selves?

From the Rose Wylde thing, I’m very much in agreement over the quantum entanglement angle.

Some possible limiting factors to prevent the dial H issues.:-

Those entangled must be aware of the entanglement. Contact is made, meaning that each party must be intelligent enough to understand the concepts and not opposed to it in anyway. It’s more of a communal thing, and not a way of teleporting some exotic unaware version of the character. So, Lu couldn’t just summon dino-Lu, unless it was a pretty smart dino. Which brings me to…

There is structure in the multiverse. The first Lu would have to set things up, branching out from her world. This takes time, practice and patience. The three we know about are summoned as part of the Carrgite innate powers, essentially a long established interchange of three versions of Cargg.

Generally, the worlds closer to this baseline Lu are more similar. So, you get the 2 “normal” Carggite duplicates. Then you may get postboot, threeboot etc. So, it’s only the further out you go where cultures and timelines begin to change more significantly. So, Lu would reach out to the realities that were closer first. Likewise those realities would be the first to appear every time that Lu used her powers. So she can’t just teleport someone in with a specific skill or power.

Subplots:
Lu may not be the only version of herself with the duplication power. This would mean that she would disappear on missions to other realities.

It’s a good device to keep the various parallel Legions in touch.

Different versions of Lu may not always approach things in the same way. They may have different goals.

Very true, there might be no threat worth summoning the Luornu of the Crime Syndicate future, who is a founder of the Legion of Super-Criminals!

That's a point. I don't see it as "summoning" so much as what you get because they are the closest versions. So, if there is a Lu like that out there, then that's a limiter on the use of the power right there. You're not going to want to summon too many versions if one you get is villainous. In times of strain and crisis though...

Certainly makes it more interesting to add this element of risk! Kind of like "Dial-H"ing for Hero where you don't quite know what you're gonna get...

The question is how long it is before writers start using it as a get out of Takron Galtos free card.

"Oh No. We're trapped in this inertron cell. Whew! Lu just happened to summon the duplicate with Phantom powers."

I prefer having more structure to it than that.

In the anime world, there's Naruto. He can make large numbers of duplicates, and he recovers their experiences when they disappear. He's used it for such purposes as training hundreds of times faster than normal by creating hundreds of himself.

There was also an episode where the duplicates gained their own personality, but it turned out to be a dream.

It would make a nice change when the person doesn't recall anything that the doubles have been up to.

The following can be honest statements:-

"I did not cheat on you."
"I am not behind the Earthwar."
"I know nothing about that pile of deceased persons."