Origin
Zoe Saugin was a bright and innovative young girl growing up on the planet Aleph in the 30th century (of Earth-247 reality). Her mother Azra was a renowned archaeologist who took both her children, Zoe and her younger brother Thanot, to different worlds on her digs. On one dig Azra accidentally inhaled poisonous gas, which slowly began killing her. Feeling helpless, Zoe frantically searched through Azra’s books and found a magical incantation that invoked the mystical Moon of Kol. With the artifact, Zoe managed to heal her mother. Her success affirmed a power lust upon Zoe to learn more about mystical artifacts in order to help others.
While exploring caverns on Saturn’s moon Titan, Zoe encountered a powerful energy pool which gave her telekinetic powers. Zoe became a representative of the Council of Aleph, who gave her the code name of ‘Morpho’ and presented her to the United Planets and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Zoe hated the name and changed it to Kinetix to reflect her telekinetic powers. She was accepted into the Legion alongside Shrinking Violet and the two became best friends.
Creation
Kinetix was created in 1995 by writers Tom McCraw and Mark Waid and artist Lee Moder. She was one of very few Legionnaires unique to the reboot (Earth-247) Legion reality, with no counterpart in original Legion continuity (New Earth) or the “threeboot” (Earth-Prime) reality. With her red hair, green costume, and telekinetic powers, she bore a noticeable resemblance to Marvel‘s X-Men heroine Jean Grey.
Character Evolution
Zoe’s friendship with Salu hit a wrinkle when Zoe began to court teammate Leviathan since both girls harbored a crush on him, though they managed to remain friends. The more outgoing Zoe won Leviathan’s affections over the shyer Salu, and the two dated for a time. Kinetix continued to search for more power and with the help of Shrinking Violet located an artifact called the Star of Akkos, which Zoe believed would increase her powers. Instead, the Star robbed her of her powers. Zoe then went on a leave of absence to search for a way to restore her abilities. While she was traveling through a stargate, rogue Daxamites destroyed her destination stargate, leaving her stranded. Just as her life support was running out, she was rescued by the sorceress Mysa Nal (aka the White Witch) and brought to the Sorcerer’s World.
Major Story Arcs
The Emerald Eye
Mysa trained Zoe in the mystic arts and restored her powers, sending Zoe back to the Legion with a mission to find the legendary Emerald Eye of Ekron, a mystic device of vast power. Unfortunately, her best friend Violet had already become possessed by the Eye and gave into its manipulative power when Leviathan was killed in action. Kinetix was unable to retrieve the Eye, causing Mysa to reclaim the power she gave.
Azra, Zoe’s mother, intervened the process and revealed she had saved Mysa’s life on an earlier expedition with an artifact. Azra was pregnant with Zoe at the time and the artifact’s energies forged a link between Zoe and Mysa, which allowed Mysa to manipulate Zoe and also change Zoe’s genetic structure, giving her an affinity for magic which enabled her to absorb the energy pool on Titan. Azra shamed Mysa into admitting her debt, and used the Star of Akkos to restore Zoe’s powers and original appearance. Kinetix went on to be instrumental in the defeat of Mordru and freeing Violet from the Eye. Later, when exploring a mysterious space-time anomaly, Zoe is enthralled by its power and becomes almost catatonic. Violet and teammate Spark convinced genius member Brainiac 5 to use his Anywhere Machine to help Zoe shut off the awe she felt at the incredible power. Thanks to her fellow Legionnaires she was awakened and returned to normal.
Terrorform
Zoe was one of the Legionnaires who were taken by the wave of the voracious Blight, who brainwashed their captives and re-engineered them into hunters and killers. She was later freed. After the Legion disbanded, Kinetix joined the Science Police and was stationed on Earth. When cosmic creatures known as Terrorforms transformed the people of Earth, Zoe was among the genetic few who became a Terrorform. As a Terrorform, Zoe was linked to the planetary biosphere and responsible for safeguarding and speeding up the evolutionary process on Earth. Because of her magical abilities, Zoe was a unique Terrorform in that she still possessed some semblance of her old personality and memories.
Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds
Zoe later returned to human form and became a member of a newly re-assembled Legion. She then played a key role in defeating the ancient villain Ra’s Al Ghul. During Infinite Crisis, Kinetix became stuck in the timestream along with the rest of the Legion and summoned with her teammates to New Earth, where they teamed with the Legions of the two other realities (New Earth and Earth-Prime) to take down the villainous Superboy-Prime. As the conflict escalated, the other two realities were wiped from existence, leaving New Earth (of original continuity) as the only remaining Legion reality. When Earth-247 was destroyed, Kinetix somehow absorbed all of the magical energies of that reality, allowing her to finally achieve her dream of possessing supreme magical power.
Death
Unfortunately, Kinetix’s triumph was short-lived. Intoxicated by the vast magical energy at her command, she made the fatal mistake of deciding she could take on and destroy Superboy-Prime on her own, since Kryptonians are traditionally vulnerable to magical attack. She neglected to learn that Superboy-Prime was now invulnerable to magic. Kinetix made a bold frontal attack and unleashed what she thought would be a lethal blast of magical energy on the Boy of Steel, who merely shrugged it off. He then retaliated by blasting Kinetix with a concentrated dose of his heat vision. Caught unprepared, Kinetix was incinerated by the blast, seeing her old love Leviathan before her eyes just before she died. Upon her death, her mystical energy and soul was absorbed by the evil sorcerer Mordru.
Powers and Abilities
Kinetix possessed considerable telekinetic ability which was mostly magic-based. In addition to using her telekinesis in a traditional manner, she could manipulate and re-shape solid matter with her thoughts. Her control of magic also granted her flight, gravity control, a degree of super-strength, the ability to survive unharmed in the vacuum of space, and the power to heal herself and others. When she absorbed all of the magical energy of Earth-247 reality her power levels increased astronomically, though this also became a key factor in her demise.