I was playing a solo game against Citizen Dawn last night (well, two nights ago technically), and I noticed a number of interesting synchronicities. I can't recall all the details of the Unity-style Brainstorm I was having, but it was interesting to note several correspondences:
* According to Tachyon on Luminous Leadership, Dawn has not only power over light, but also the "ability to manipulate lifeforce". (Incidentally, the art of that card makes me wonder if the Citizens are all wearing Legion of Super-Heroes style "flight rings" provided by Dawn.) This makes me wonder if perhaps she and Fanatic might have basically the same powerset, perhaps even drawn from the same source? This is somewhat counter-indicated by the fact that Fanatic has wings and Dawn doesn't, but it's still not inconceivable there could be a connection.
* This may be purely speculative on my part, but I found that in my game, Return with the Dawn kept raising Citizen Blood from the dead, and I found myself mentally comparing him to Spite. We don't know what his power is, or if he even has one, but it seems likely that his habit of damaging the lowest-HP hero might translate to recreational murder.
Damn, that's all I'm getting offhand. I think a lot of this was based on art cues, so I should probably look at the decks again in order to see if I can recapture the "eureka" moments I was having.
I feel more like that Dawn's powers come from the sun and she's is almost solar powered(but not exactly), and Fanatic is powered by her faith not that I know how that works but it's just my opinion.
You'd think Ra, god of the Sun, would just go up to Dawn and say "Oh, you use the sun for your powers? Pfft, not any more - I am the Sun!" and switch of her connection to it, just like that…or turn it around and burn her with it ;).
I think Dawn gets her power from more than just the sun, at the very least she has more uses for her sun powers than Ra. For the most part, Ra just burns things with fire and can be immune to fire damage. He can also fly. Dawn can also fly, but also heal herself and her Citizens, as well as make herself invulnerable to all damage and not just fire.
Well, according to her bio she can pull energy from any natural light source, and so while the sun is her big source of power, it is not the only one available to her. Her power source is stated as Cosmic.
Well, something along those lines seems to be what he's doing on Drawn to the Flame. (I've always wondered about that card…is Citizen Dawn really the best villain to use it against? I think she has only six ongoings. The ideal victim would have as many Ongoings as Plague Rat or Miss Info, but as many targets as Voss or Dawn, I would think; has anyone run the numbers and figured out the optimal use of it?)
I for one do not consider the sun to be a Healing Light or a source of Luminous Leadership, though I'll certainly agree with Blinding Blast. To me Devastating Aurora counter-indicates Dawn being especially Sun-focused…she's just about light in general, but I admit to being very confused as to why this lets her manipulate life-energy. This is part of why I suggested a connection to Fanatic, who also channels both fire and radiant damage as well as healing…scientifically, there can't be much of a connection among all these things, but in squishy comic book logic, they fit together tolerably well.
The sun does power most life-processes on Earth, and it is often associated in a lot of ancient cultures with eternal life... so I don't see it as being all that far-fetched.
The sun is the source of the energy that fuels all life on this planet, and a star is the most powerful destructive force in nature. The power of a star is the power of life and death, and most things inbetween. The fire that Ra throws about has nothing to do with the power of a star, unless you have a magnifying glass and something to burn.