Good old Sidious made this comment when I announced the 2e set, which I've never forgotten, nine years later:
I remember Dwellerofthedeep's, too!You're going to be doing the Legion?
<3
Some chick named BatgirlIII said this:You know what I love about you, Jab? You convert just as many or more characters you don't like as one's you do. It makes your thread very fun to read. Cyber's description, for example, reminded me of a lot of the snark people put in video game reviews these days. This is a favorite thread of mine. Keep up the good work.
Dirigible:Long Live the Legion Of Substitute Heroes!
Nice take on Lydda! The Substitutes as a whole, alongside Invisible Kid and Thunder, my favorite members of the LSH. Lydda, of course, if my favorite of the Subs. Any Legion fan or would be Legion fn shoudl check out Hero History, for a complete run down of everything cool about the LSH.
BTW, if you think that outfit was skimpy... Hoo Boy are you in for a surprise. Yowza.
Also, as per Final Crisis, it seems that defeating creatures made of tangible shadow allows Lydda to temporarily absorb their essence into herself and convert it into super-strength. This might be a pure power stunt, or maybe something worth folding into the build.
Once again, I gotta throw out my love forHero History, and in so doing ask that Laurel Kent be given a write-up. Just ignore the whole Manhunter-Robot-Thing.
Her only superpower was Silver Age Superman level Invulnerability, which is why she never got on the team (this was the era of No Duplicate Powers), but she was a nice and fun little background character. At least until the writers turned her into a low-rent Cylon.
A boost for Matter-Eater Lad:"Colson turned on the lights and trapped me!"
That is the worst secret weakness ever.
Oh man, this one brings me back: TALIESIN!! He dug my Tyroc array, which was great. Too bad he selfishly chose to breed, thus disappearing from the boards forever (seriously though, did he die or what?):I don't get why everyone hates Matter-Eating Lad. He basically can eat anything, right? So why can't he eat the villain's weapons and "evil" objects like earthquake machines or somesuch, or, in a darker version of the Legion, eat the villains themselves?
He's awesome just for that reason. That he can do that, but he just eats basically everything else. Heck, couldn't he eat AIR?
WOODCLAW!!!:Oh, that sonic scream array is hilarious!
Great classic LSH builds. One of my goals was to stat out the Legions of Three Worlds following the comic, but I never got the time. Love to see old school LSH getting its due.
Tattooed Man:If I remeber right the old theory was that Supergirl was stronger than Superman because she had the strength of an adolescent girl powered up by the yellow sun, while Superman have the strength of a child, so Kara increment was proportionaly greater. But since she was a girl (and consequently had to be portrayed as more compassionate and controlled) she tend to hold back more than her cousin.
It's interesting how the modern incarnations of the characters have reversed this idea.
Very nice LOH builds with Colossal Boy & Triplicate Girl.
Course I'm biased since they're my 2 favorites of the entire Legion. Between their sweet & simple type of powers and some of the writing of their personalities, I liked how C.B. was done in the Legionaires reworking of the first 5 or so issues) and T.G. was great too.
I thought how T.G. was done in the modern reworking was pretty cool plus with how the writers made her splits having differences in personality characteristics (one was super shy and mousy while the other one was the bad girl) was something original I thought.
Heh, someone asked me why I made certain statting decisions, and I responded with THIS essay. Good thing I totally got less wordy with time, right guys ?:What's with all the "Lad" characters? Did DC hire a Scottish writer or two?
Setothes:Yeah, I don't have much rhyme or reason to my Build choices; usually just going for what strikes me as interesting at any given time. And yes, I definitely gravitate towards more 'unique' builds or ones that nobody's thought of yet- I mean, there are a THOUSAND Captain America & Thor builds on this website, but very few examples of the ENTIRE Avengers team, so that's the kind of thing I focus on. I mean, I still like having my own version of Cap out there, but I also give loser characters some love for an example of a 'lesser' hero. Plus, that makes me the sole benefactor of a Living Lightning build, or Deathclaw, or Silver.. claw? Y'know, that silver chick who turned into animals and was Jarvis's foster child. And then there's groups that get NO love on the ATT, like the horrible Acolytes or Mutant Liberation Front scrubs. Plus, statting up loser characters and people I've never heard of give me a great opportunity to scan Wikipedia and fansites for more info about them- research is actually fun, and I would've never looked up these characters otherwise.
I just like doing things in big 'groups'. I get pretty ADD-ish, jumping all over the place for what things I like to build, so setting out an entire group is a good way to stay focused and be totally unique in some builds at the same time (while I could care less how I stat Scrub #45 of the Serpent Society, I always wanted to see what Anaconda, Death Adder & Diamondback statted up like).
And yes, I definitely 'low-ball' the lesser characters. This is partially from a realistic standpoint that there ARE obvious tiers in comics if you pay attention- Living Lightning will pretty much ALWAYS lose to Captain America in a comic-book story, and also probably Warbird or Spider-Man or even most PL 10 'standard' characters. Also, an X-Man (often given as the 'typical' balanced PL 10 archetype standard hero) would probably take out most young or low-selling heroes pretty handily- meaning Darkhawk, Sleepwalker and most of the New Warriors are gonna be 'lesser'.
Though I have some trepidations about low-balling some villains. I mean, the M&M guys in their in-house stuff tend to give EVERY villain a huge amount of PP spent, and make them all insanely accurate to give bigger challenges to the heroes (their "Sandman" is a PL 12 powerhouse, f'rinstance), whereas I low-ball them since they have something like a 10% ratio of victory over the PL 10 heroes in a fair fight. If you wanna give your players a bigger challenge, just bump up the accuracy or damage.
A good examples for my build choices & statting PLs is the current Legion of Super-Heroes set... They were actually requested MONTHS ago, and I said no, since I was utterly unfamiliar with them and had little interest. Suddenly, when I finished the last set, I got the fascination with the team after flipping through some old comics & fansites of them, and there I went, reading up on them. So with all the fun research and people's opinions about the characters, I get to stat them up- giving most of them proper PLs by my estimation. And since the Legion often very much had REAL tiers of power laid out, I can guilt-free put half the team at PL 9, the generic, solid members at PL 10 (the original three, Shadow Lass, Colossal Boy and others), and the few major-league powerhouses (Wildfire, Ultra Boy, Mon-El & the Super-kids) from PL 11 to 12.
Cuz yeah, I actually like PL 10 being a pretty good level of power- lesser heroes and non-powerhouses SHOULD be limited to PL 9 or lower, and not be given tons of ranks in Rage or Sneak Attack to boost them up. I mean, Cosmic Boy is a good hero, and he's probably beat Monstress 9/10 times every time they fought, regardless of how tough she's supposed to be.
haha, look at my tiny lil' description for Wildfire: http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopi ... d3#p561002Awesome to see more Legion builds!
I had speculated pre-Legion of Three Worlds that Shadow Lass would be able to drain the solar energy out of a Kryptonian or Daxamite with her light-negating powers, and in the latest issue, she attempted just that (Prime got clear before she drained him significantly, however).
Her relationship with Mon-El had always seemed horrifically imbalanced, with him being arguably the toughest Legionnaire (having Superboy's powers, and no weakness vs. Kryptonite, and, thanks to Brainy's serum, being both resistant to lead *and* able to function under a red sun!) and her being 'Lights-out Lass.'
Now that it's been established in canon that Tasmia can shut down a Kryptonian / Daxamite with her powers, her relationship with Mon-El seems a lot less lopsided!
Traditionally, her darkness is just that, the absence of light, and not 'darkforce' like the stuff that Darkstar or animated Raven uses. As a result, her big tactic is blinding the foes and then kicking their butts with her Talokkian martial arts knowledge. In the fifty issues of the Threeboot continuity, she's shown firing bolts of darkness twice, once to negate an attack by Sun Boy (which is plausible, if she's negating his solar energy), and once at a random goon who doubles over as if he's been hit by something solid, which is completely nonsensical, since her powers have never been solid (save in an AU called Superboy's Legion, where she did have darkforce powers).
Like the Teen Titans Raven, she would be a hell of a lot more useful with Marvel style 'Darkforce' powers instead of just darkness control, but she's generally just 'Lights Out Lass,' the Legion's answer to Dr. Midnite, another Silver Age hero who turns out the lights and beats up the disadvantaged bad-guys.
Oh neat! This comment that I still remember from way back when was actually by Thorpocalypse:
Ah, poor Stone Boy. PL2 on the thread, PLX in our hearts.
Great job, Jabroni. I continue to be impressed with your fortitude. I may have missed it since I have been out of pocket since my computer is down (I'm working off the kid's PC at the moment, so I can't post builds unfortunately, but I had to check the board) but what's next?