Sensor Girl

[kybearfuzz]

[begin comic geekery]

In 1984, DC Comics decided to launch their direct sales, Baxter-paper editions of the "Legion of Super-Heroes" and "The New Teen Titans." I really enjoyed the Legion stories from this time frame. It was during this time that Karate Kid was killed off (becoming the fourth Legionnaire to die in action) and Projectra, his wife, left the Legion and the dimension.

In issue #14, the Legion opened up tryouts for new members, the first time in years of stories that they did this. The cover showed many of the applicants, including a flying blonde and masked hero that only appears in the final panel of the story. The masked hero was called Sensor Girl. Masks were an oddity for the Legion as they had no secret identities, but other than her name, nothing was revealed.

Over the next year, we readers were given many clues to her real identity. I remember greatly anticipating monthly issues to see what they would reveal. She could fly, appeared to be physically powerful, had superhuman senses, and could create odd effects, like red illumination in the dark. All signs pointed to Supergirl, which was just really too obvious as she'd been killed in the recent Crisis at that time. It was something like a soap opera for comic geeks and I loved it. The team was becoming divided over her mysterious identity.

After 12 issues, during a battle with the Emerald Empress and the Fatal Five, in the last splash page of issue #25, her identity was revealed. I remember turning that last page slowly, to reveal that Sensor Girl was a returned Projectra. I admit that I was snowed. She became one of my favorite Legionnaires, which was strange as I never really cared much for her as Projectra. The new, grittier and much better costumed character was easy to like. I was happy to see her in this guise again during the Final Crisis and look forward to her reappearing with the LSH.

[/end comic geek moment]

Comments

[dendren.livejournal.com]

I remember really really wishing it was going to be Supergirl. I seem to remember reading some interview with the writers a few years later that Supergirl had actually been the original pitch with some weird thing that would have kept her from ever returning to the 20th century or being Supergirl. But, that was nixed and pulling Projectra out of the hat really was shocking and impressive. I really did love the 80s Legion. I've truly never understood why they felt they needed the first reboot in the first place.

[notmypresident.livejournal.com]

I'll take your comic geek moment and up it by one: I was watching "The Menagerie" from ST:TOS in HD the other day and realized that Sensor Girl's upgrade basically made her the equivalent of those aliens with their ability to make you see or hear whatever they wanted.

They're obviously up to something big with her current absence from the storyline. I mean, it's not as if she's vacationing on Talos IV...

[mat-t.livejournal.com]

Is it just me, or does that costume make her look really butch? I think it's the really broad shoulders.... *G*

I'll trump your comic book geekery

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

Back when the Legion, the Teen Titans (and the Outsiders? I can't recall) were starting their Baxter-paper editions, which would be in addition to their usual Mando-paper editions, Amazing Heroes did an article explaining how the Mando series would start reprinting the content of the direct-sales editions after a year of original content in both series. It was all somewhat confusing, and that sales experiment didn't last long.

Yeah, I wrote that article ... I wrote most of Amazing Heroes then. Sometimes under assumed names, so it would look like we had a bigger stable of writers than we actually did.

[mat-t.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Sensor Girl, take a look at this. Poke around on the rest of the site too, since you're a big LSH fan :)