Should have been a contender, issue 1

It's always bothered me that some characters in the Legion of Superheroes never got their due.  Some just had powers that got them written out.  Others just were not liked for whatever reason.  I wanted to give a shout out to one of my favorite characters who became a Legionnaire once, but we never saw it.  That character is:


Nightwind!

 

She became a member during the Five Year Gap but her adventures as a Legionnaire were undocumented.  She was known for having the power to control and generate wind, which was passed down through the women of her family.  One could assume this was some type of metagene but it was never explicitly stated.  She was a fan created character and her first appearances were written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas.  Perhaps Paul Levitz had no great love for the character.  When Invisible Kid II was nominated for membership, Wildfire objected, suggesting Lamprey and Nightwind were more qualified for membership.  All things considered, Jacques would have had to learn to use his flight ring and was a relative novice in his powers, but at the time, the Legion did not have any Brown members, so I can understand his inclusion.  On the flip side, the Legion females were still under-represented in terms of powers and male to female ratio.  Saturn Girl was not portrayed as overly powerful at this point, not counting Supergirl, the rest of the female Legionnaires had defensive powers.  Nightwind would have helped change that.

Her powers were seen as a form of aerokinesis in that she was able to generate winds and vortices.

That's nothing to sneeze at. Tornadoes are destructive forces and whirlwinds and are often used by the Flashes for different effects.  Also, no one thinks less of Storm from the X-Men for manipulating winds; to her credit, they are usually accompanied by other effects.  But the comparison to Storm does bring up questions.  Was she an Elemental?

No, not those guys.  Was she tied into the planet with her control of the wind?  Was she actually capable of more?  I sometimes feel saddened that Legion of Superheroes has a lot of stories that take place in outer space and many of the characters would be virtually powerless in space.  Storm was able to manipulate the solar wind because she could tie into natural phenomena.  If we take away the elemental nature of her powers that changes some possibilities.

Nightwind was during the Reboot Era as an Academy member.  She was written quite capably and was perceived as the biggest threat in the group. Her powers were written as true manipulation of air and less of air patterns.  She could cause the air current to change directions in multiple sharp angles.  This is a whole other direction for her powers.  Imagine being able to remove the air supply from around an opponent or causing the air pressure to increase around the opponent.  Sadly, the Reboot got the boot shortly after this storyline.

When the Retroboot came after Legion of Three Worlds, Paul Levitz once again had her in the Academy, but towards then end of the Academy stories in the Adventure Comics, she graduates only to not be accepted into Legion membership and her story ended there.

As of this writing, it's been almost 7 years since we've seen Nightwind (Adventure 528).  With no Legion series in the works, it seems like she will never realize her dream of being a Legionnaire.