Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Give the Dark Circle some love...

Playing off the storyline in which Mordru was purged of evil and reborn as a childlike innocent, it would be interesting if evil, like matter and energy, could never truly be destroyed, only moved around, and the dark magic and malice took on a life of it's own as a malignant shadowy mystical entity, possibly even *more* dangerous for having been removed from Mordru, who, for all his cruelty, was still human(ish), and had his failings and foibles (like his phobias, his tendency to underestimate people, his desire to make people acknowledge his superiority, rather than just kill them, etc.).

This entity, as a Dark Circle member, possessing some utterly innocous person (Dr. Steffanuci?!), could be funky. To the rest of the Circle, he'd be some whacked out mystic, ranting about freeing the worlds from the tyranny of the UP's pro-science / progressive and anti-traditionalist / mysticist / 'old faith' stance. He'd sound like some insane crossbreed of Aleister Crowley and Strom Thurgood, all about 'state's rights' and fighting the evil of big government telling everyone what they should believe, and being all 'personal responsibility' and 'do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.'

But, really, his agenda is run by the darkness, and it just wants lots and lots of death, a grand sacrifice to usher in a new Dark Age, where people are once again huddled in their hovels, once again afraid of the night and it's mysteries.

The rest of the Dark Circle would think they were using the charismatic nutjob, agitating for various worlds to be freed from onerous UP sanctions and able to practice their ancient traditions (such as lethal dueling, on Talokk VIII, or snapping the necks of people who piss off the Queen, on Orando). But the dark magic that was once the evil of Mordru is using them, to bring the United Planets to civil war.

Really, the whole notion of extracting or purging evil sounds like one of the Oan Guardians brilliant plans. You end up with a deformed individual, missing components of it's own being, and a unitary evil, unfettered by any shred of the humanity that once restrained it...

So... are we talking nominating Mordru to the high Circle round table, or some other sentient entity of pure evil such as the genie Kantuu or the Positive Man or Command Kid (or was it Dynamo Boy, I get those two confused)?

SHe wasnt so crazy as much as had a Soul Debt assigned to her by her ancestor Brainiac 2 via Neron.

Perhaps because I read out of sequence, having the Dark Circle defeated by the Miracle Machine didn't do a lot for me.

I didn't mind the clones. So many plots end up being fake deaths or clones, it's nice to see it up front for a change.

I also like each of the five members having a particular strength and background; financial expert; energy sourcer; UP administrator; cloning expert; political strategist/philosopher.

The clone aspect was part of the SW6 plot I think. The Dominators may have got the technology or the vats from the circle.

Certainly the political dissatisfaction with the UP shown in the Levitz run, and in Who's Who was taken across. They seek to exploit political weaknesses and having a cult that taps into certain common denominators is a very useful tool.

Not a surprise to see Tellus, from a world just finding it's way, who's open to new ideas and whose race is dominated by the Fishbowls feels affinity with the Circle.

There was an excellent text page in 5YG. It was a rallying call to The Circle. No Dark anymore. But it used the disasters that had befallen worlds against the UP.

As for members for this thread., those little cowls and little faces behind them remind me of Gates. How useful to have a method of mass teleportation for your cultists and supplies. How fitting that there are other strong political voices amongst Gate's race. Gates even has a little circle on his costume. Perhaps his peer also has one, just a dark colour.

I think it would be interesting to do a story with some Dark Circle fringe group somewhere that is legitimately doing good things but just in a different way than the Legion....maybe someone introduced into the cult who brought into their propaganda so thoroughly that they believe the Dark Circle genuinely want to help people and has therefore only taken the most benevolent view of its philosophies. It could be an interesting conundrum for some of the Legionnaires who are used to punching out their problems. Do they allow the Dark Circle to continue having influence on these people and risk them being corrupted or can they let them go and hope that their genuine altruism will infect the larger cult and change it? Then of course you've got the Valor argument of "is it really our place to tell this culture how it can live anyway?"

To a resident of a world being exploited for minerals by one of the UP big worlds, it's very easy for Valor to say that. After all, the organisation he works for is legitimised, if not funded outright, by the UP. The UP is funded by the worlds oppressing that resident. Lots of possibilities.