scans_daily

You know, I was thinking after my last post on this topic that I had sort of cheated.

Now don't get me wrong, Cypher's powers would be fascinating, and useful, and generally awesome in a quiet sort of a way, but it, like all the powers I was thinking of, were those that would be USEFUL to me in my life - Teleportation would save on travel costs, Telekinesis would just be so functionally useful I don't even know where to start... Another power I had pondered was the ability to split into multiple selves like Triplicate Girl/Duo Damsel/Triad/Duplicate Damsel (Good lord, she has more names than selves!). which would also have many uses.. though if I had two jobs I might run into tax issues... but that's overthinking things a bit.

No, I realised that I also had a power I wanted to have for FUN.... flight would be at the top of that list if I didn't have it included in the power I was thinking of... What power is that, well here's a clue (if you have't already read the tags)

Animal Morphing like Gar Logan/Changeling/Beast Boy (Though he will always be Changeling to me)

Now there are other variations on shapeshifting which I considered; Metamorpho would be too much of a hassle to remember if I'd made myself completely solid and non-toxic and he has no "normal" human form.

Warlock - He isn't so much a shapeshifter as a self-aware mass of somewhat goopy techno-matter which assumes shapes when it's necessary. Not sure that's the way I'd want to go, and the whole "converting living matter into technomatter and absrobing it" might be seen as something of an extreme diet.

Mystique and other impersonation shapeshifters - I dunno... there's just something slightly skeevy about becoming other people, and I have a nasty feeling I'd either A) abuse the power or B) Use it to make myself look better, and then get depressed when I assume my true form...

Straightforward animal morphing seems the way to go...

From his early days with the Doom patrol (when only his hair and face stayed green for some reason)

To his first appearance with the Teen Titans (where he immediately puts the squeeze on the Teen Wonder)

To him joining the New Teen Titans (Where Wolfman and Perez decided that an all green form was a lot cooler, and a lot easier to draw. Though Mr Perez has commented that getting all the animal references was a LOT of work, which would be the case in those pre-Internet days)

And he certainly USED that reference

And it didn't hurt that he's cute, and green... and at the time I was introduced him he was actually older than me so it didn't feel too weird (Now it's a case of... I actually don't know how the hell old he is.

Now it has to be said, that as the years moved on he had a couple of .... not so good looks. People talk about MulletWing, but it was Gar who, thanks to artist Tom Grummett, actually HAD a proper mullet... short on top, long at the back... and frankly if I had hair like that I'd probably change into other animals at any opportunity too.

Then there was his Mike McKone designed, Waid-era Titans outfit... not sure purple is the way I would ever go if my skin was green all over (A bit too Marvel 1960's supervillain IMHO), but...

But if you like body hair on your men... then Gar is your man... he's been hairy from a relatively early age (Gratuitous Dick in swimsuit panel is gratuitous)

Now I read most of the Animorphs book and I like the way they depicted taking on animal form, and Gar has all that with the advantages that he; doesn't have a two hour limit, doesn't need to acquire the DNA of any animal, and is not even limited to animals that actually exist if he wants to go there, though it's usually connected with him having one of his emotional breakdowns.

Now Gar himself has had a fairly shitty life in many ways (parents dying when a kid, adoptive parents dying, or going insane, or not being dead any more, or having the Doom Patrol wiped from his past.. and so on), and has a habit of making jokes so corny that even Dick Grayson's Robin winces, but we're talking powers here, not personal experiences, thankfully.

The power to become a bird any time I wanted to fly, a cheetah any time I wanted to run somewhere, or turn into a manta ray in the water would be pretty much the definition of cool. The constantly being green might be a bit of a grind I grant you, but Gar seemed to cope well enough with that (and if the existence of tanning salons means we don't make a fuss over people being a peculiarly unnatural shade of orange all the time, would green be such a big deal?), and I think it might be worth it for the ability to become a tiger just because I wanted to be a tiger.