Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Much Ado About Harmonia Li

Eryk's new poll got me thinking about old Miss Li. I've come to the conclusion that while I don't have much care yet for the execution of Harmonia, I'm completely fascinated by her concept and potential.

Once she was in her Legionnaire uniform and finally confirmed a member, I considered her more seriously and relented to the idea that she was around for the long haul. Suddenly I want to know more of her past, what her career might do for the Legion because of her longevity, or the ramifications of having such a powerful skillset.

She could easily take on most of the Legion with her powers. Would she ever turn on them over the right issue? Could her powers have helped destroy Titan? Is she actually being set up to be the next great adversary/Time Trapper? What limitations does she have or is she destined for Mary Sue-dom? Where'd she even get these powers - did they precede the immortality or vice versa?

I can see her leveraging to be Legion leader as a rookie, simply due to her wisdom and level head. Surely certain Legionnaires are a bit suspicious of her. She's powerful, mysterious, and practically invited herself onto the team. This is potential drama I'd love explored!

She also needs a codename. She's pulling a Blok on us!

I have said for ages that I'd like to see some more powerful butt-kicking female Legionnaires, and Harmonia Li certainly seems to be a powerhouse.

'Elemental powers' should give her the powers of Nightwind and Sun Boy and Elysion/Terra and Mera, combined.

I think she has the potential to be an interesting character, but I'm definitely not buying her as a Legionnaire yet.

I also have this bad feeling that PL has a bunch of really cool background stuff for her that will never actually make it into the series.

That's what I take from the term 'elemental powers' as well, Set. It's interesting because that's a whole lot of power for one person. You would almost think that should have been as much of a plot point or something teased as Harmonia's age was. Instead she sort of just magically had them one day and no one inquired more on it.

I'd love to see what Dirk thought of a literal fire wielder alongside his 'solar energies'/heat. I also wish Harmonia's presence didn't negate another great elemental wielder, Nightwind. I can see the newly flirty Polar Boy wishing to work with her too, much to her disdain. That could give Harmonia and Comet Queen something to bond over. "What's with him?"

I do hope they give her some drawbacks. Perhaps she ends up causing ramifications to the environment? Is far too sensitive to the 'natural elements' around her? After Titan, maybe she could prefer not to dabble in the laws of physics/elements and considers her gifts that the Legion wish to utilize a curse?

Really, anything is better than nothing. Being out of the lab and interacting with other characters is a start - hopefully the ball keeps rolling.

Double-posting to agree with Eryk. It's hard to see her fit the super-hero mold, even with powers, when we've never seen her in combat before or do much with the team besides boss them about or be cryptic. I imagine the rationale for her membership is now part of the 'unseen days' when the Legion Lost team vanished.

With her introduction in the first issue of the last Legion volume, I too am wondering if Paul hasn't had something grand planned for Harmonia from the beginning. Being a Legionnaire surely must have been in the plans, or did the DCNu relaunch create a need for her on the team on the back end?

*glares hatefully at Harmonia*

Elemental can be limiting as a designation.
It doesn't have to cover all of the elements, I mean.

Niad was a water elemental, as is Mera (with the additional ability to form water into objects.)
Firestorm is a fire elemental whose powers seem to include atomic fire.
Crystal seemed to do fire and earth.
Ms. Mystic's powerset included all elements, IIRC, but her team had individual elemental abilities.

We know she controls fire but have we seen anything else from her?
She might have blown Nura aside using heated air rather than using a wind power.

I'm wondering about her age.
will we see others like her join?

I WOULD like Levitz to show that she couldn't have prevented Titan from blowing up.

She's great as a concept, but now they have to make her great in execution. The last thing I want right now is another character with lots of potential.

It isn't being too cynical to suggest that unless Paul really delivers on Harmonia, she'll one day be cannon fodder for future writers. That potential being realized has a deadline, and its not too far in the distant future.

She's interesting and there is a lot to like. Now I need to be convinced.

I do not care about Harmonia Li.

I've always enjoyed seeing new characters in the Legion, and I've liked most of them. But in the past few years we've had more than enough drawn-out stories about Harmonia, Earth-Man, and the Academy students. It's like the Legion has become a supporting cast for Levitz to showcase his new characters.

In a group the size of the Legion--and a Legion we haven't seen in many years--it would be good to see more of the classic characters.

I've always felt that the Legion concept could support a family of books, like the X-Men. (Not that that's always a good thing....) Now we have two Legion books, but not much Legion.

Okay, I'm off topic now. That's all.

It'd be interesting perhaps if Harmonia was a 'natural elemental' that could only manipulate wind and earth. That'd be a nice spin compared to characters who control both fire and ice. I'd like that limit on her, at least.

I'm fascinated by Professor Li and thrilled that she finally got a costume!
Mon-El is no longer the oldest Legionnaire!

I agree with Legion Tracker on all points.

It does surprise me that Paul, who seems to have been having fun with his internet research into stuff like Diogenes and his lantern or the many-eyed Panoptes, didn't bother to give Harmonia Li, who has been explicitly called out as of Chinese heritage, control over the *Chinese* elements of earth, fire, metal, water and wood, instead of the Western European elements of air, earth, fire and water.

It just feels weird for a millenia old Chinese element-controller to be throwing air around, when air isn't even a Chinese element.

Now if she was Japanese or Tibetan, air would fit, as the Japanese had a five element system of wind, earth, fire, water and void, and the Tibetans a five element system of air, earth, fire, water and space, but for a classical Chinese 'elemental controller,' she should be manipulating earth, fire, metal, water and wood.

I think the Chinese elements would be more interesting for the following reasons:

a) they're different from every other elemental ever in comics

b) they're culturally appropriate

c) she wouldn't have made it that much harder for Nightwind to ever join just by her presence, and...

d) the Chinese elements would present their own unique challenges/advantages/disadvantages...in the Legion's 31st century, how often would she actually come across earth, wood and even water in its natural state in large enough quantities to be useful? It would make her an unexpected powerhouse on their occasional trips to less developed worlds though...meanwhile, metal and fire control is enough on its own to see her through the times when the other stuff isn't as immediately useful.

For some reason, it doesn't bother me that she duplicates Sun Boy as much as it does that she duplicates Nightwind. I think because Sun Boy is already a member in good standing, so it's not like there's any danger of Harmonia forcing him off the team because she can do the same stuff he does. Also, they're still different enough that it works for me. He can do light and heat as well as fire. If I were writing these characters, I would have Sun Boy be a lot more powerful than her when it comes to temperature and the amount of area that he can cover, whereas Harmonia would be able to duplicate Human Torch style tricks like making flame restraints and shapes.

On the other hand, Nightwind isn't actually a member yet, and it's going to be a long time before Harmonia will be established enough as a member herself that we can afford to have another newbie duplicating her tricks. And Nightwind ONLY has air control, there's nothing else in her bag of tricks to make her stand out from Harmonia on her own. So boo to Harmonia Li.

Why does she have to control so many?
And where has she shown air manipulation other than against Nura, which could have been from heat causing air movement rather than direct manipulation of air?

I'd rather see the Legionnaires that we have, too.
Perhaps that's why I prefer seeing Glorith and Comet Queen most, rather than the others.
They're at least classic characters.

There was a scene in #2 of the current series where she creates a breeze to cool Glorith down as well...it's definitely a breeze and not temperature control, because you can see Glorith's hood and Nura's hair blowing to the side from the force of it.

I suspect her powers amount more to "controls nature" than being tied to any particular list of elements.

Hmm, I don't like that (not disagreeing with you, I just dislike it).

Technically, what ISN'T nature? If she's not tied to specific elements of it, does that mean then she'd be able to control anything that isn't manufactured?

She could use some limits to her powers. Off-hand, I don't know what those could be (spatial? temporal?), but it would be good to have Sun Boy be able to do things she can't. Maybe it's just a question of degree; she can manipulate fire, but he can really blast with the force of a sun.

If she can only manipulate pre-existing elements, that might be a built in limitation. She wouldn't be able to create water, or generate fire blasts, but if there's a source of either of those elements around, she could perhaps throw them around.

On a planet, she'll generally have access to earth (from the ground) and air (from the atmosphere), but not always have access to fire or water to manipulate.

In space, she might have some handy asteroids or ice-comets to toss about, but, otherwise, might be SOL.

Of course, if her power is control of *nature,* and not *elements,* as theorized above, then she might be able to control plants and animals as well. Perhaps even people! That's getting a little crazy powerful, 'though, and I'm pretty sure the blurbs just say 'elements' and not 'nature.'

Well, the blurb in the latest issue describes her abilities as "natural elemental". It's ambiguous what that means, but I read on analogy with describing Swamp Thing, for example, as a "plant elemental" but with a much broader "controls the forces of nature" (whatever exactly that means) rather than just "controls plants".

We need more 'unnatural elementals.'

A dude with the power to control plastic or animate garbage or something.

Prophylactic Pete

There have been living garbage creatures, haven't there? Not thinking of one at the moment, but the concept seems familiar.

If there's a character who can control garbage, they should give him/her a personality like Tenzil's.

Or maybe a personality like Rokk at his most stoic. That would be fun too.