Issue(s): Marvel Super Heroes #6 (Sabra story only)
Cover Date: Jul 91 / Summer 91
Title: "Fruits of the wound"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
Paul Abrams - Penciler
Steve Buccellato - Inker
Mike Rockwitz - Editor

Review/plot:
Sabra goes up against a group of terrorists called Israelis for Anarchy. They are lead by a woman named Windstorm, who was once dying and Sabra gave her half her power to keep her alive.

It turns out that Windstorm, who was a drug addict at the time, isn't very appreciative of what Sabra did for her, so now she wants to kill Sabra.

I guess the 50% of her powers that Sabra gave Windstorm included her wind powers, since i've never seen Sabra use wind powers before. For that matter, i never knew that Sabra could give half her powers to someone else, and neither did anyone else that read her previous appearances or any of the Marvel Handbooks.

Sabra takes her powers away from Windstorm and gives them to a boy that Windstorm injured.

I don't so much have a problem with the idea that Sabra can permanently transfer half her power to someone else (after all, we've never learned that much about her) as i do with the way the idea is introduced so casually, like it's something we already knew about. It's a very strange thing to just sort of drop into the script. Or to reveal in a 7 page story in Marvel Super Heroes that no one will read, for that matter. It does mean that Sabra could be considerably more powerful (50% more twice as much, in fact!) if she would just stop passing her powers around to strays. Having re-read all of Sabra's Handbook entries for this review, i can tell you that her powers include recuperative abilities, so maybe after the boy recuperates, Sabra does go and take her powers back. Although i don't think she ever uses wind powers in the future. Maybe that was something specific to Windstorm?

I'd also just once like to see a story featuring Sabra that doesn't feature terrorists or politics. Presumably Israel has bank robbers, and maybe even super-villains. I get that she has a niche, but at this point when you see a Sabra story you can guess how things are generally going to go, and that sort of means that we don't need any new Sabra stories. Time for something different.

Of course, if we really wanted to raise Sabra's profile, "different" should take a backseat to not "awful", which is what this story is.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This can go at publication date.

Other stories from this issue: X-Men, Power Pack, Cloak & Dagger, Speedball.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

FNORD - when you wrote -
"I don't so much have a problem with the idea that Sabra can permanently transfer half her power to someone else (after all, we've never learned that much about her) as i do with the way the idea is introduced so casually, like it's something we already knew about. It's a very strange thing to just sort of drop into the script. Or to reveal in a 7 page story in Marvel Super Heroes that no one will read, for that matter. It does mean that Sabra could be considerably more powerful (50% more, in fact!) if she would just stop passing her powers around to strays. Having re-read all of Sabra's Handbook entries for this review, i can tell you that her powers include recuperative abilities, so maybe after the boy recuperates, Sabra does go and take her powers back. Although i don't think she ever uses wind powers in the future. Maybe that was something specific to Windstorm?
"
Her wiki entry states -
"She is also able to charge other individuals by transferring to them her own life energy, in the process enhancing their physical state of health (she has twice used this ability to save dying individuals) and granting them low-level super-powers, which are apparently at random and otherwise unrelated to Sabra's own mutant powers (such as the wind-generating powers given to a woman who took the costumed identity Windstorm). The recipient retains their new powers until Sabra herself decides to withdraw them by retrieving her life energy. Her standard power levels drop when she gives away her life energy (she has been shown losing up to half her natural physical power), but they return to normal once she takes back her life energy. She still remains susceptible to gas attacks."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_(comics)#Powers_and_abilities

Clyde, that looks mostly like someone just trying to rationalize this story. The two times she used the ability to save dying individuals would be the two in this story, Windstorm and the boy.

I know, I'm a nerd, and I should probably Sturky this, but...
If Sabra gave half of her power to Windstorm, that doesn't mean she could be 50% more powerful, that means she could be twice as powerful! Meaning 100% more powerful. If she could be 50% more powerful, that would mean that she only gave Wildstorm an amount of power equal to half of what she now has, meaning a third of her total power.
Yeah percentages are confusing.