Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The Dr Light 2 is the real Dr Light Thread

Kicking butt in the JLU

This pretty much sums up Dr Light

Tryin to wrap this COIEs up!

What really stinks about this is that they retconned Arthur into being a hero, married to Kimiyoshi, and they have KIDS.

There are just so many things wrong with that.

wait .... what?


laugh out loud!

.... ..... what?

whut!

What?! When did that happen?! Is that a post-Flashpoint thing?

Okay, I found a blog post on that. Was it confirmed that it was Kimiyo?

Here's the panel in question.

Yanno, 99 times out of 100, you say 'nu52 changes' and I'll just shake my head and walk away, but this might be that hundredth time.

What was done to Arthur Light in the original continuity, with the rape and / or child-killing psychosis, went, IMO, *way* too far. If the only good thing I can say about the new 52 is that that particular bit of grimdark creepy pedo sexfetish crap has been bulldozed down, sowed with salt and paved over, then yeah, I'll take a new twist on Arthur Light.

Kimiyo could sometimes be a breath of fresh air, but DC doesn't seem to really have a lot of *fun* snarky characters like Emma Frost or Monet St. Croix (or Northstar or Quicksilver, on the 'bitchy dude' side of things). There are certainly some occasionally jerkish characters, like Guy Gardner or some versions of Captain Atom, Hawk and / or Hawkman, but they are rarely portrayed as *likable* jerks, with it even being a point of great enjoyment in-comic when someone like Guy gets punched in the face by Batman (joked about for *decades*).

Kimiyo, IMO, suffered from this different standard at DC, in that she didn't come across as delightfully snarky so much as just unpleasant and unlikable.

I certainly do get that many super-hero types didn't ask for whatever happened to thrust them into their current role in life, but, at their heart, comics are kind of an escapist power fantasy, and I found it a bit of a turn off to read about a character who kind of actively hated that life, and spent a bunch of time complaining about it and criticizing her fellow heroes.

It's not unrealistic that she wasn't thrilled with how the accident had changed her life, or her new peers (many of whom were not her *intellectual* peers), but it just felt like the exact opposite of fun young characters like Firestorm and Nova, who were often celebrating their new powers (even as the new challenges that came with them complicated their lives!).

In a way, she felt like the sort of character that Brainiac 5 devolved into, bitter and curmudgeonly and critical of others intellects and a bit antisocial, but lacked the fifty years of goodwill that Brainy had built up, which sort of handicapped her chance to breakout and become more popular, IMO.

I think I would have liked her better if she'd been a bit more Emma Frost (cutting, yet *smart*), and a bit less Guy Gardner (contrary apparently out of sheer cussedness).

Yeah, but like, think about it. What does it say when they take a character they turned into a monster rapist, and then make him married to a woman he has repeatedly threatened to rape, torture and kill?

If this had been done pre-Flashpoint and to the same character who did all that, I would definitely object. But seeing as this is a whole new universe and continuity, and the new Arthur Light is just that - a new character with the same name and powers, but a totally different personality and history, I don't mind. I can accept him as a totally new character. If that woman really is Kimiyo, anyway (although I would greatly prefer her as the scientist-hero she once was).



I wonder. There were a handful of issues where she didn't seem happy with her status as a hero (mostly around the end of the JLE/JLI run post-Overmaster where the League was dissolving), but that was mostly because she felt guilty at leaving her kids behind in Japan. I can't recall a time when she actually loathed her powers; her appearances after Arthur Light attacked her showed that she missed having them. So I wouldn't call her bitter.

But yes, for a time there she was very unlikable. After her original appearances in COIE, she became better - her occasional JLE/JLI appearances before Breakdowns had her be a bit snarky, in the mold of characters like Beetle or Black Canary, and her post-Breakdowns League stint had her do a total 180 and become a very nice, sometimes tentative woman with issues!

Her best portrayal IMO was towards the end of that JLI/JLE run where she was forced to take a leadership role after Hal left. She was forced to show her inner strength. I particularly liked the issue where she told Captain Atom off in a firm yet not-bitchy way.

Her Meltzer appearances destroyed all that and made her personality regress to her early COIE self, before the death of Supergirl. That's the curmudgeonly and mean personality you were talking about, where she just basically insulted everyone (Plastic Man, Jason Rucsh...). Although some of her later appearances had her personality shift subtly yet again to be more like her JLI self, where she became a good team player and actually cared for her teammates.

I think her appearances in Superman and Supergirl also got that balance, where she's generally nice BUT can give you a verbal lashing if you so deserve it.

I think her best performance, albeit very small, was when she was invited to join the League by Max and none of the heroes knew anything about it ...

It was an odd twist where she was trying to prove herself but a bit ironic because they should have been happy to have her and she kicked so much butt ... surely some of them must have knew her ... except she didn't quite get into a costume. But I did like it because it showed a "joiner" side of her personality where other times she has been written as such a "i'm defensive so i'll reject you first" character.

After the whole Arthur Sue crap, I don't even want Kimiyo in the same costume anymore.

If I remember right, it was only Batman who really had a problem with her. And that was because they didn't know who had sent her a signal device.

I kind of liked how they made her power just super bright light, she had a couple of big moments IIRC.

I don't see how they could have stuck to that though. even though cool and realistic.


Is Dr Light part inspiration for Invisible Brainiac?

ooo I'm getting a new idea for a thread ....

Well, her yellow light was able to beat Guy Gardner. First she dissolved his GL ring's shield, then she punched him in the nose! Whoo!

Honestly? Invisible Brainiac was a combination of Invisible Kid and Brainiac 5. Then I realized that being able to turn invisible means I must be able to control the light rays that hit my body... which got me to thinking, what if I can control light in all its forms... and after I got that idea, I expanded my powerset to include the other things Doctor Light can do (turn herself into light, cast lasers, generate bright light etc.) And I hit on the idea of creating illusions before the Post-Flashpoint Ray had that power!

So no, it's honestly just coincidence that Kimiyo happens to be my fave Leaguer and happens to have the same powers as my LMB alter ego!

Ooh, that sounds interesting. I remember her in Crisis, and she seemed to pop out of the box with full on Green Lantern-esque 'hard light creation' powers, which were kind of dull (since the world already had seen a ton of Green Lanterns, even then, thanks to all the visiting aliens).

Dazzler, for that matter, really had to work for a living before she started throwing lasers all the time. Pure light manipulation is a surprisingly rare power.

As are people with temperature manipulation who don't also burst into flames and fly around, or can't create gigatons of ice out of nothing at all, or aren't also weather controllers.

Someone with pure light powers (blinding glare defensively, focused light rays to blind specific targets offensively, no lasers or 'hard light' constructs) would be a neat sort of 'anti-Batman' or 'reverse Shadow Lass,' blinding foes with intense light, instead of skulking in shadows.

She did that a lot in most of the JLE/JLI era, possibly in a bid to differentiate her further from Green Lantern (they were on the time at the same time). It was very effective in some situations where they fought large mobs of people.

I found this amazing image while looking for photos ... a second Wildcard round perhaps????

Ah, Kimiyo in her underappreciated yellow costume. It doesn't stand out from the page quite as much as the black costume, but I still liked it a lot.

Well, in both Titans and Multiverse Legion Idol we had 2 wild card rounds. But the 2nd round was markedly different from the first!

I'm quite happy with her current placing in the game though She made it a lot further than many Leaguers with longer (or equally long) tenures, at least.