The Perils of Light Lass
     
     For all the gender equality in its membership the Legion's female members
kept winding up in the clutches of the villains and having to be rescued by
the guys.  This was probably because the girls had the least effective powers.
While the guys had powers like superstrength, energy blasts, shapeshifting and
control of the electromagnetic spectrum they had powers like shrinking, 
turning intangible, mindreading or creating illusion.  None of which really
qualify as asskicking abilities.  For a case in point let's take a look at 
one of my favourite imperiled heroines, Ayla Ranzz aka Light Lass.
     While Light Lass's name suggests a superheroine who could control light
the sad truth was that she was stuck with the power to make objects lighter.
Not exactly something to strike terror into the hearts of evildoers.  It 
wasn't always that way, in fact Ayla began her career with a very effective
power.  When she first appeared she called herself Lightning Lass.
    Like her twin brother Garth and her older brother Mekt, Ayla had gained 
electrical powers thanks to a run in with the Lightning Beasts of Korbal.
Garth became one of the Legion's founders as Lightning Lad while Mekt turned 
to a life of crime as Lightning Lord.  Mekt was very keen for his younger
sister to follow his lead but Ayla preferred to follow her twin brother's  
superhero career.  Problem was the Legion's rules required unique powers so 
long as Garth was a member she had no way into the Legion.  That changed 
following Garth's apparent death, a grieving Ayla took his place in the Legion 
under the name of Lightning Lass and set about filling her brother's shoes.
     This lasted until a typically convuluted chain of events brought Garth
back from the brink of death after they discovered he'd been buried while in
suspended animation.  Ayla conceded Garth had prior claim as the Legion's
Lightning member but she didn't want to drop out.  Enter Dream Girl, who
said she could use her homeworld's science to change Ayla's powers hopefully
giving her a unique ability so she could stay in the Legion.  It's argueable
how successful she was as Ayla exchanged her lightning powers for the ability
to make things lighter.  As I said earlier not exactly a strike-terror-into-
the-hearts-of-evildoers power so she needed to be rescued a lot.  Which she
was thanks to her new asskicking boyfriend Timber Wolf (or "Wolverine-Lite"
as he would retrocatively become known) as traditionally tough guy characters
needed a pretty and spunky though basically ineffectual girl to rescue on a
regular basis.
     Alya put up with this for years but Brin's emotional immaturity finally
got to her (tough exterior over a little boy interior) and they began fighting
on a regular basis.  Case in point, the couple had visited the Medicus
hospital space station so that Brin could have his face restored to it's
original human appearance.  Soon as the operation was done he became
incredibly insecure about if Ayla would still love him with his new face.
Throwing up her hands Ayla stalked out, unfortunately she was just in time to
run into an alien intruder that called itself Organus.






    As you've probably guessed Timber Wolf saved her from the tongue of doom
but he couldn't save their relationship.  A few years (or months, it's hard to
tell duration in comics) later Ayla dumped him and left the Legion having been
brooding about the effectiveness of her powers.  Returning to her homeworld of
Winath she settled into mushroom-farm life as a working vacation.  Completely
unaware that the Legion of Supervillians had reformed and that her brother
Mekt was once again a member.  The evil Legion had conquered Oranda, homeworld
to her recently married former Legion comrades Princess Projecta (who was now
Queen of Oranda) and Karate Kid (Ayla's unarmed combat trainer).  While she
was unaware of this Mekt was thinking a lot about her.  So much so that he
arranged to have her kidnapped and brought to Oranda so he could convince her
to come to the dark side.  He had tried this before but never with such
chilling intensity.






While Ayla was stuck in the dungeon the Legion of Supervillians had been
taking a toll on the Legion of Superheroes.  Several of their members had
fallen into the Villians clutches and they had transported the whole planet
into limbo so they were safe from pursuit.  With their security and victory
assured Mekt went to see his sister, sure she would agree to join them.  What
followed was a real shock to the self procalimed Lightning Lord.









MOTHER OF MERCY! IS THIS THE END OF AYLA?!


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