Who's Dream Girl?

Who's This? A sleepy Legionnaire.

The facts: Dream Girl joined the Legion of Super-Heroes to save the life of seven Legionnaires she foresaw dying back in Adventure Comics #317 (1964). That done, she left, later to join the Subs, become romantically involved with Star Boy, and rejoin. She was Legion Leader during The Great Darkness Saga. her importance waned in later iterations. She had a bit part in the 5 Years Later era, and as Dreamer was only a hanger-on in the Reboot. The Threeboot makes some use of her, and eventually turns her into a ghost only Brainiac 5 can perceive, and her history was of course restored in the Retroboot. The Rebirth Legion has a non-binary Dream Girl who nevertheless goes by that name.
How you could have heard of her: She did appear on the Legion animated series, and fans of the Arrow show will have noticed her ancestor NIA Nal as an earlier Dreamer. But in terms of high profile comics, she was one of the lost Legionnaires in the Lightning Saga, and played a key role in Legion of 5 Worlds. Also, her appearance is quite striking, so...
Example story: Legion of Super-Heroes #285 (March 1982) "The Forgotten Future" by Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen and Larry Mahlstedt
Nura has been called back to Naltor because the planet is in disarray - seems the Naltorians have all lost their precognitive abilities. Now a utopia attained by predicting calamity while it can still be prevented has been plunged into chaos.
What Dream Girl fails to tell the High Seer is that she, too, has lost her second sight. So the only difference between her and another Naltorian is that she has a Legion flight ring. But this is a woman who has always been considered lesser because of her passive power set, so she's learned to compensate with a high level of training. She's about to show us what she can do as three thieves hit the Intergal Cred-Bank, made vulnerable by the current crisis (something tells me Naltorians take a lot for granted). Their initial panic when they see a Legionnaire show up quickly subsides when they realize WHICH Legionnaire it is and that she's alone. One thing people often forget about Dream Girl is that she's a great scientist, only behind Brainy and Invisible Kid I in terms of brain power. Here she becomes the first Legionnaire to spontaneously harness the anti-grav power of her ring to sling heavy machinery around.
She follows up with some deft martial arts (one of my first Legion issues had her kick a thief in the face, showing she was one of the team's best hand-to-hand fighters as well, so I was fully expecting this).
But none of this solves Naltor's problem. Dreamy sits down (on a bed, I believe all Naltorian chairs are probably beds) and starts a study of the recent news-zines (so they still have media, but WHEN is the news written?). All aboard her train of thought...
Naltor has always been prone to seismic activity, and though it could be predicted, it was still a bother and kept skyscrapers out of its cities' skylines. The new gyroscope creates a vibration that cancels out seismics. Wanna bet it cancels out something else? Again with the science degree! Nura crashes in, throws technicians out of the way and makes a small adjustment. It'll allow for small tremors but...
Science guys, you gotta check that you're not stepping on another wavelength, whether Rock 103.5 or, y'know, the precog band. Before we go, we do still have to see Dream Girl USE her powers, if only a little bit. What's in your future, Nura?
Uhm, okay. When I have those thoughts (not necessarily about Star Boy), I just call them imagination.

An important lesson about one's powers not being the be-all and end-all of a character. Female Legionnaires of the Silver Age were usually saddled with "weak", "passive", "female" powers - indeed, it was Dream Girl herself who changed Lightning Lass' kickass powers to those of Light Lass, when an editor must have realized the clerical error - so later writers (and Levitz worked hard at this) had to fill out their portfolios to make them more. Dream Girl is one of the better examples.

Who's Next? A duplicitous godling.

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