Beyond that, a super-smart human has an 8th level intellect. Brainiac 5 has a 12th level intellect. It’s quantifiable and demonstrable.
In his very first appearance, when the legion was :rolleyes: about “super-karate”, he challenged Superboy and KK flung Superboy across the room using Superboy’s momentum and held his own for about 8 panels. Given that this Superboy was the one who could easily blow out suns with his super breath, push planets out of order, and so on. So 8 panels is pretty impressive.
With regards to the OP’s question, I think the way it was supposed to work is that each member was supposed to have a unique power excluding Superboy’s and Supergirl’s. Mon-El’s is that he was immune to kryptonite and lead (and that he was marginally stronger than Superboy–he was a couple years older than Superboy, remember). Ultra-Boy’s is that although he has the same power-set and can only use one power at a time, each is slightly better-his “penetra-vision” can see through lead (and melt it–this was at a time where Superboy used X-Ray vision and it couldn’t see through or melt lead). U-Boy’s invulnerablity let him travel through time (SatLoSH 280-ish?) to avoid dying, etc.
Unfortunately Ultra-Boy’s powers weren’t (cept for penetra-vision) slightly better than Superboy or Mon-El. That would have made sense and would have been nice, enabling him to hang with those two more, but for whatever reason they seemed to make him a weaker sister when it came down to it.
Though there was an issue where (somehow) Ultra-Boy was the only Legionairre (Other than Superboy) who was immune to mind-control. Even Mon-El was effected.
I think UB was more skilled than Kal or Mon, though, simply because the one power at a time limitation forced him to be. When he’d been framed for murder and his own teammates were hunting him, he outmaneuvered them in flight, and also owned Colossal Boy and a few other of the heavy hitters in quick succession. (Admittedly Timber Wolf refused to fight him.)
Up to a point I agree with you. But I think that it really comes down to the early editorship not being very good at attending to continuity, rather than completely dismissing the need for it.
There had already been a turning point, sometime around 1959 or 1960. That was the inclusion of a letter column. Some of the “letters” were promotional plants, rather than real. (WHAT? You want an all ‘Perry White meets freak Red K’ feature? You must have been peeking over our shoulders! Look for… ) Others were genuine but facetious, or showed limitless praise, or merely wanted to nail the creative team on boo-boos. But there were some apparently serious questions raised, and that kept the writers and editors on their toes.
Yes, it’s a different world now, with online sources especially. Let’s say we have had a whole new turning point. But there have always been nerdy geeks like me.
And, as for the specific question of my OP, there certainly were ongoing mentions of the need for at least one unique power in a candidate.
For example:
(Cosmic Boy, with mildly skeptical tone: ) Why, um, Dexter Rich-brat, what unique power do you possess? (He had none, and he actually thought he could buy membership with a pretty stone.)
If you want more evidence of at least some effort toward maintaining continuity, there certainly were enough text boxes, especially in Giant Annual issues, which explained things and listed things based on past issues. All named Phantom Zone villains, Kal-El’s Kryptonian family, Supergirl’s two sets of parents, various Red K effects with story titles, and so on.
I have an issue where a guy with immunity to Jeckie’s purely mental illusion-casting is stymied by darkness courtesy of Shadow Lass – so I figure a robot on the rampage could get its wires ripped out under cover of darkness (or by an Invisible Kid), but hallucinations simply wouldn’t register on video-camera eyes as it advanced on Projectra.
I don’t think Invisible Kid was invisible to mechanical sensors and the like. I remember Tharok taking him out after spotting him with his robotic eye.
Immunity to mental powers would stymie Jeckie. In that case, Color Kid (who was around much earlier) could do anything Shadow Lass could do. There was a story where the Subs, under the direction of a less-than-sane Braniac 5, took out the League of Super-Assassins, with Color Kid using his powers to create inky blackness.
My point was, let’s say he wants to sneak around all stealthy-like; Shadow Lass can do that, generating darkness that she can see in; and I’ll grant for the sake of argument that Color Kid can generate inky blackness, and that he can do a great impression of a lighthouse. But I’m guessing he either awkwardly stumbles around while feeling his way in the dark, or he draws attention like an incandescent beacon.
Also, Shady was an independent hero before she joined the Legion, and if I recall correctly did so during an adventure against the Fatal Five. The Legion was always more generous–no, make that more eager to induct–candidates who showed they had the true grit from the get-go.
I just read some LSH stories circa 50’s…I don’t think there was a single page that didn’t make me go “What the f…”. Whether it was Superboy changing the atomic structure of an element with a ‘super-shout’ or the Legion constantly interfering in the past even though they know they can’t change history, and they were always misinterpreting what they saw on the time viewer anyway.
Oh yeah…and apparently any time Lex Luthor attempts to murder Superboy, the modus operandi is to wreck his lab, leave him standing in the rubble and hope he never does that again.
That’s “banyo” - Leeta-87. Not a Legionnaire, she was seen only as a memorial on Shanghalla and as the title character in a biographical play that Ultra Boy and his girlfriend had acted in, prior to his becoming a Legionnaire.