Ladies Of The Legion Part 8

This picture of Imra Ardeen-Ranz, one of the founding members of the Legion, doesn't have anything special going for it in terms of a gimmick, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out:



Hailing from Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, Imra was imaginatively code-named Saturn Girl.
(That actually reminds me of how, when I lived in Minnesota, my friends and I would assign nicknames to women we saw around whose names we didn't know, giving them "clever" appellations based on certain physical characteristics. Thus, "Tall Chick," and "Ass Chick," and, thanks to a vanity license plate she had, on her car, "GWAR Chick.")
Like all of her people - as is often the case with the members of the Legion - Imra is a powerful telepath, though - again, as is often the case with Legionnaires who are members of races with special abilities - she was an especially gifted telepath, being one of the most powerful in Titan's history.
Imra actually served as the catalyst for the founding of the Legion. Despite her youth, she was considered an adult on Titan - another common theme in the Legion - and was heading to Earth to put her powers to use as a member of the Science Police. Along the way, she met two boys also bound for Earth to make their fortunes: Garth Ranzz of Winath, and Rokk Krin of Braal.
The galaxy's richest man , industrialist R.J. Brande, was also on the Earth express, and upon arrival at their destination, Imra picked up a stray thought from someone who was planning to kill Brande. She alerted Garth and Rokk, who, having unique abilities of their own - the ability to generate ligntning and super magnetism respecitvely - intervened and saved Brande's life.
Impressed by this act of heroism, Brande made an offer to the super-powered teens: he would provide them the funding if they would form a team - some sort of legion - of super-heroes. Inspired by the legendary exploits of Superboy in the 20th Century, who, despite his tender years, had gone on to become history's greatest hero, the three youths accepted the proposal.
And thus the Legion was born.
I couldn't really think of a "hook" for a Saturn Girl picture - I mean, I had Shrinking Violet shrunken to a tiny size, and even Lightning Lass was at least generating some electricity - and it's not even really much in the way of a "pin-up" pose. But honestly, what can you do to show telepathy?
And as for a pin-up pose...well, I didn't even feel the need to have her in a state of undress, because, seriously, do you see that costume?
(To be fair, she is somewhat out of costume: she's not wearing her opera-length gloves.)
This costume is, as far as I reccall, another Dave Cockrum design, and I can tell you that the fact that this was how Saturn Girl dressed in the 70s and into the early 80s says a lot about why young Jon liked comics so much in the first place...
There were quite a few designs for new costumes for existing Legionnaires and even for new characters that Cockrum came up with that never got put to use, several of which he brought over to Marvel and used in his work on the All-New, All-Different X-Men.
However, Cockrum clearly really liked this design, as even though it did get used for Saturn Girl, he essentially reused it in the design for Storm.
Though now that I think of it, he may have originally designed Storm as a new character for the Legion, and found that DC decided to pass on introducing black character, but decided to use a modified version of the costume design.
In any case, in the early 80s, Imra switched to a more modest costume that was based on her original outfit, and has mostly - and sadly - been depicted in some variation of that ever since.
She also went on to marry Garth Ranzz, also known as Lightning Lad, who is the twin brother of Ayla (Lightning Lass).