The Shattered Prayer

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I’ve already talked about my top 5 favorite Legion Ladies. Now it is time for the Ladies of the Legion II. So Let’s get right to it!

There are only 6 more female Legionnaires to go. And for those of you steeped in Legion lore, you may wonder how can that be. Well, I decided to have a cut off when I made this list. Only people who were Legionnaires pre-5 Year gap are included. After that, everything becomes hopelessly convoluted, people turn into different people, Projectra turns into a snake, Timber Wolf becomes a, well, Wolf-man, and all continuity is lost. There are therefore no Zero Hour Legionnaires, no SW6ers, no Three-boot Legionnaires, no Lost Legionnaires, or anything like that. Supergirl is Supergirl, not Andromeda. There is no Kent Shakespeare. Princess Projectra never became a snake. All of those Legionnaires have a different place in my heart, but they aren’t really my Legion. Leaving off the 5 year gap was a difficult decision. Leaving off the threeboot Legion was not.

So on that basis, there are 11 female Legionnaires, 23 male Legionnaires (including Chameleon Boy), and 3 non-human Legionnaires (including Blok). That’s where my list comes from. Sorry, Monstress. Sorry X-S. I had to make a cut somewhere.

So let’s get to numbers 6-11.

Number 6. Dream Girl. Nura Nal of Naltor, called Dreamy by her teammates, based on her, um, well, based on her body really, but supposedly based on her powers. She had the power to predict the future, first in her dreams (hence her name) and then while awake. Her name was a pun on her figure and for far too long she was treated as a bimbo. In fact, when she joined the Legion all the male Legionnaires voted her in, but the female Legionnaires voted her out! And when she reclined on a chaise lounge to show them her dreaming power, all the boys stood around her and leered. In spite of this, she was portrayed as being quick witted and smart. In her first appearance, she foresaw the Legionnaires dying on a mission. She therefore joined the team on false pretenses and basically tricked everyone into being forced out of the Legion to prevent them from going on the ill-fated mission and dying. She even turned some of the Legionnaires into children. In actuality, she saw robot doubles being destroyed instead. Even though they voted to let her stay in, she left the team because her powers had been unreliable and she wanted to improve them. Before she left, though, she used superscience to change Lightning Lass’s powers so that she could stay on the team.

She next joined the Legion of Substitute-Heroes to hone her skills, and while there fell in love with Star Boy, who had been kicked off the Legion for killing someone in self-defense. The two of them rejoined the Legion (in the guise of Sir Prize and Miss Terious) and she later went on to be Legion Leader, the second woman to lead them after Saturn Girl. She even led them in their greatest battle, against the angry god Darkseid. Finally she was being shown as the super smart person she was instead of a platinum bimbo. She even was kidnapped once because someone was trying to get rid of the four smartest legionnaires. Saturn Girl was also one of the four.

And the final reason I love Dream Girl. She eventually retired (albeit in the post- 5-year gap) and gained lots of weight, becoming something a 30th Century Mae West. Fat or thin, Nura knew she was sexy! For this and many other reason, I love Dream Girl.

Number 7. Shadow Lass. Tasmia Mallor of Talok VIII, often called Shady by the other Legionnaires. Tasmia and her sexy gay cousin Grev Mallor were hereditary champions on their desert like homeworld. The Mallor family had a 3000 year history of defending the planet through the ability to project fields of darkness. Tasmia joined the Legion after the Fatal Five invaded her planet. The main reason, if I’m honest, that I like Tasmia is her look. Light blue skin with Jet black hair. I also love her taste in clothing. She originally wore a one piece bathing suit and a headband, before moving on to a modified bikini even sexier than Saturn Girls. (She did, sometimes, cover up). She also was involved with and later married the Legion’s strongest member, Mon-El. Interestingly, before she ever joined the Legion, we learned though an “Adult Legion” tale (tales of the Legion when they become adults even further in the futue!) that she was destined to die defending the science asteroid (apparently while wearing white make-up). Later we learned that was only a possible future and Tasmia got to live happily ever after. At least until Mon-El died and she cut off part of her finger. But that happened much later.

Number 8. Phantom Girl. Tinya Wazzo of Bgtzl. PG, as she was often called, was born on Bgtzl, a planet that existed in the exact same space as Earth, but in another dimension. Tinya learned early on to phase in between her dimension and Earth’s allowing her to virtually walk through walls. Let’s face it. It is a neat power. And she was doing it decades before Kitty Pride over in the X-men. And in the 70s, nothing beat her bell bottoms and pig tails. She also dated the ultra-dishy bad boy, Ultra Boy, a relationship that had its fair share of tragedy. At some point both of them thought the other was dead, like that time Phantom Girl lost her memory, got shunted back in time, called herself Phase and joined the L.E.G.I.O.N., the Licensed Extra-Governmental Interstellar Operative Network. What’s not to love?

Number 9. Triplicate Girl. Luornu Durgo of Cargg (later Carggg). Like all people on her planet, Luornu could turn into three separate copies of herself. Unlike other people on her planet, each of the copies retained an almost separate personality. If one of her died, the other two could survive. Any other Carggites would die in all three forms if that happened to them.

It is difficult to put her this far down the list. Because she is such an interesting character, but she became that way almost by accident, through an increasingly tragic turn of events. She was, in fact, the second Legionnaire to die. Or at least one of her was. But unlike Lightning Lad, the first Legionnaire to die, one of Triplicate Girls bodies stayed dead. He came back to life. She was killed by Computo, an experiment gone wrong from Brainiac 5. Afterwards, the dusty remnants of one of her bodies was laid to rest on the Shanghalla, the asteroid of fallen heroes. Not letting a little thing like death keep her down, she immediately became Duo Damsel (but, unfortunately, still favored Purple and Orange for her outfits). Not only was she lucky in living, she was unlucky (at first) in love. She had an unrequited love of Superboy. In fact, there was a touching scene of her crying herself to sleep because he would not notice her, even though she knew he would eventually grow up and marry Lois Lane. She therefore turned her attention to a Legionnaire other women overlooked, Bouncing Boy, whose power was, ahem, super-bouncing. She overlooked his portly exterior to see the courageous Legionnaire underneath. They were, in fact, the first Legionnaires to marry. They went on to run the Legion Academy for new recruits who wanted to be Legionnaires.

But Luornu’s tragedy was not over. In a fight with the Time Trapper, another of her bodies was aged to death, leaving her powerless, and devastated. Brainiac 5 fitted her with a force shield, but it was still a heavy burden to bear. Such a story really does deserve to move her up, but PG and Shady get higher rankings only because of my childhood like of them. It really was a difficult call.

Number 10. White Witch, Mysa Nal of Naltor, sister of Dream Girl. Mysa started out as red haired beauty before being turned into an older crone like woman called, nicely, the Hag, and eventually becoming an albino creature with antennae. She is low on the list only because she joined relatively late, almost 20 years after the others. Although born on Naltor, Mysa was trained on the magical world of Zerox (previously Xerox until someone wanted to sue). Early in the Legion’s career, she helped defeat the sorcerer Mordru (leading to one of the most sexist comments in Legion history — When Mon-El discovers that while he, Superboy, Shadow Lass, and Duo Damsel (and even Lana Lang in her guise as Insect Queen!) were trapped in the past, Mysa Nal, Dream Girl, and Princess Projectra defeated Mordru, he proclaimed “I’ll be darned! To think of all the trouble we had dodging Mordru! How ironic that he was foiled by three girls!” Nice Mon-El. Real nice. Mysa also helped defeat Darkseid by magically moving a planet through space. In spite of her vast powers, Mysa was a gentle creature, developing a deep and touching friendship with fellow Legionnaire Blok. If she had a longer career with the Legion, she would have been higher up on the list.

Finally, and sadly, number 11. Lightning Lass. Ayla Ranzz of Winath. Yes, in spite of her lesbian relationship with Shrinking Violet, Lightning Lass comes dead last. And it is all Dream Girl’s fault. Alya was the twin sister of Garth Ranzz also known as Lightning Lad. On their planet, if you were not born a twin, you went insane, as did her older gay brother, Mekt Ranzz Lightning Lord. The three Ranzz siblings were attacked by lightning beasts when they were young and all gained the power to cast lightning bolts. Mekt went on to a life of evil (founding the Legion of Super-Villains, no less!) while Garth went on to help found the Legion. Ayla just kinda sat around until Lightning Lad died. She then showed her future alternative sexuality tendencies by dressing up like a man and telling the Legionnaires she was her dead twin brother! She even got in his coffin so that when they visited, she could “come back to life.”

That’ seriously fucked up, Ayla. I mean, seriously.

Her ruse was foiled by Sun Boy, who apparently liked to stare at Lightning Lad’s head for hours because he noticed that not only was the back of Lightning Lad’s neck was not tan as if Lightning Lad had recently cut off his long hair. Sun Boy also noticed that the revived Lightning Lad had no Adam’s Apple! I’m guessing Ayla taped down her breasts, or Lightning Lad had a bad case of Gynocomastia. And I’m guessing Sun Boy has some explaining to do about why he was staring so intently at Lightning Lad’s neck

But then, Lightning Lad actually did come back to life at the expense of one of the Legion of Super-Pets, Proty I, who disguised itself as Saturn Girl and gave its life to revive Lightning Lad. (yes, there was a Legion of Super-Pets). And that meant good bye to Lightning Lass because the Legion by-laws strictly stated that you could not be in the Legion if your power duplicated another Legionnaires. Unless you were Supergirl, Superboy, or Mon-El, all of whom had the same power, but they were like, Superboy superpowered. They didn’t just toss lightning around. So Dream Girl changed Ayla’s power to keep her in the legion.

And created the boringest power in all of the Legion.

Ayla could make things float.

Sigh. Boring old Ayla (notice how she’s always in the background) changed her name to Light Lass, and to signify this change put first a cloud on her chest and then a feather. As a kid I hated her stupid power. I don’t know why, but I did. BORING! And a feather! A feather!!! And she wasn’t even a lesbian yet. In spite of her transgendered beginnings, she dated Timber Wolf, before he became, ahem, Furball. Fortunately, 20 years later, she became Lightning Lass again, got more interesting and Lesbianed up. But until that happened, she was always my least favorite Legionnaire.

Well, that’s it for the girls! Next comes the Lads of the Legion!

Buy me a beer!

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