Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Is switching STAR BOY's race stupid?

Thom being black because there weren't enough black Legion characters made no sense to me, but Thom made black because there's too many white brown-haired Legion characters makes a lot of sense. Thank you, Blacula!

On Star Boy's side - whether it's Thom, James, Jazmin on Pro-Men, or someone new entirely - he has one of the coolest new designs on the team. Definitely gonna be the center of a lot of reader attention.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a new character (and for that matter, since it's a reboot, they're ALL new characters). Waid gets the same chance to make me like the character that every other writer has. The bearded Thom Kallor with the star-studded suit is over with and doesn't look to be coming back. At this point, it's the concept of the Legion I enjoy and keeps me coming back. If I want to enjoy those characters again, well, that's what back issues are for, right?

Just read the preview...

SPOILERS FOLLOW!


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Looks like they've also given Karate Kid a tan. I guess we can give up on ever seeing the REAL black Legionnaires again. Ever.

Or maybe when Tyroc, James, Danielle and April come back, they'll be white. *cringe!!*

No Danielle and James smileys? This is an outrage!!!

They're there. It's ComputoII not computo2 and KidQuantum not kidquantum1

I should have known better than to doubt Garykins!

What if Star Boy was made to have purple skin and come from the planet Wildcat? (Allusions by example to Northwestern University, my alma mater. Forgive me.) Would anyone see this negatively?

Purple wasn't in the previous Legion panoply of skin colors. It also does not occur on this "real" planet of ours. With those factors, I doubt anyone would object.

Unless one is objecting to a reboot, as such, that uses any characters which appeared earlier -- and that, I believe, is the point.

Using a color that occurred earlier -- say, blue -- or a "minority" color that occurs on Earth -- say, brown, at least for North America and Europe -- makes more of a resonance with the past than many want to see. Either with Legions past or with skin distinctions past (and, hopefully, now being transcended).

The only way of avoiding any such uncomfortable resonance, though, is for the reboot to abandon the entire past roster. A cast change on the order of "Star Trek: TOS" to "Star Trek: TNG," not from "The Legion" to "LSH" v5.

If you accept the idea of the reboot, as such, and the holdover of characters, this change is no more smart or stupid than any other, I'd say. If you don't care to accept the holdover, to any degree, it's going to be unsatisfying.

... As an aside, I'd only consider "race," especially in an interstellar civilization, to reflect species. And independent origin. Compared to humanoid-or-not, or Winath-vs.-Terra, skin color is small beans.

I'm surprised there's not been a louder outcry at chalk-white Tasmia for one...

*objects to rereboot in principle*

I have to agree with Greybird. So many people positive about the reboot yet upset the character is black??? This is a reboot right? If you accept the reboot it is silly not to accept these things.

I understand the entire black character inherits white character heroic identity and the problems with it. But most responses have that as a after thought and most seem like "Thom isn't black!".

I mean posts about Karate Kid being tan are just really silly. It's pretty accepted that he's of asian descent...now we are going to get upset if it's Chinese asian or filipino asian, etc.

The biggest problem I have with this is...it's the Legion. The book everyone continues to say is about acceptance, etc, etc, etc.

What if Thom, Jo, Garth or someone else came back gay?! Can i say so and so isn't suppossed to be gay b/c they never were before? Not trying to make this a hot button issue but...some of the posts seem a bit...angry. strange.

I am more upset about Cham not having antennaes.

Jorge

If Star Boy were purple, I'd be pissed off, I think. Jediah Rikkane is the purple-skinned Legion ally!

Maybe the Legion race-switches will be succesful like they were recently in SUPREME POWER.

But I still have reservations. The Squadron Supreme mythos had ABSOLUTELY NO pre-existing black characters to use. The Legion mythos DOES, and has instead chosen to make white characters back instead of USING the black characters.

To me, that's saying the black characters weren't good enough to use. And I disagree 100%.

MLLASH,

The thing is ALL the early adventure guys that Waid is using were white guys. We haven't reached the point in history where Tyroc, Jacques, or James join.

Trust me I was hoping for some more members that debuted sometime after 1969

Jorge

Exactly, Jorge, which harkens back to my very first post on this thread... maybe using the ADVENTURE-era only cast was a BAD idea.

It's not my favorite idea Lash. I think people may see Waid biased to that era and starting out with character of only that era isn't the wisest move.

It has been confirmed by Barry in one of the above threads that chalk-white Tasmia is going to be BLUE after all. Thank Jeebus.

I hope it is Thom and his race is a total non-issue, as it should be, especially 1,000 years from now.

I would prefer this to having it be a new black Star Boy.

I also hope they'll explore other possibilities in the romantic couples dept. rather than keeping to the established ones. I suppose a gay couple would be too much to hope for, but at least mix and match the old couples a little. I'm over Garth/Imra, Thom/Nura, Jo/Tinya, etc. etc. It's not realistic to think that the whole universe has been rewritten AGAIN, yet these same couples meet and fall in love over and over again.

Speaking of Thom, what was up with him blasting up out of the ground on page 1 of the Titans/Legion special? He's not a physical powerhouse anymore. He lost his Daxamite level abilities some time ago and now only has (had) gravity powers.

I'm just going to imagine that the Starman who rescues and returns Jack Knight to Opal City was just a an older, slightly scarred black man instead of an older, slightly scarred white man. Easy enough.

Gee, changing someone's skin color is about as big a deal to me as changing one of their sexual orientation...which a lot of people here seem to be behind 500%.

I have little problem with black Thom. Like new costumes and reanimated corpses, this sort of thing comes with the territory in a reboot. And, yeah, him not being a giant snake helps. On the nuclear accident scale of LSH stupidity, Thom is a bit of foil wrapping in the microwave compared to the Chernobyl-level disaster that was Sneckie.

That said, I think I'd have preferred an approach more like the Superboy's Legion elseworld, where established looks were given distinctly otherworldly tweaks.

But darkening up the LSH is a good thing. As former cultural barriers tumble, I'd expect the whole human race to be brownish in skin color. The MAJORITY of the human race is dark-skinned. So any white folks on the team ought to be from other planets (which conveniently happens to be the case. Hmmm. LSH AIN'T NUTHIN' BUT A WHITE SUPREMACIST CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!1!!!)

Have they made Thom black as he was reputed to be the *ahem* biggest boy *ahem* in the gang?

Like a lot of other fans I'm disappointed that there is only one black member and no non humans on board. Come on WnK, where are Tellus, Gates and Quislet?

Mrs CB H.I.V.E. - Karate Kid seems to be of another race too.

I think it's about time that KK was officially shown as he was supposed to be.

Well, the Asian traits were always in KK's background canonically (?), as his father was the original Black Dragon and was always depicted clearly as an Asian. It's only the artists and colorists' renditions that reflected KK was fully Caucasian. Pre-Zero Hour, the only time Val was shown to have that in his genetic heritage visually was when Grell basically drew Bruce Lee as Karate Kid in some backup story. (I think a lot more could have been done with the plot threads from that story, myself- but then, I'm a big KK fan...)

I'm agreed with Milash.
Tyroc, Computo or Catspaw are better choices.
If only this new Star Boy is named James Cullen... I'll be happy.

But for the other side nobody remember the original Quantum Queen are a platinum blonde and not the sexy Jazmin Cullen.

Maybe Thom's skin was affected by passing through a comet?

If it is Thom, of course.

Todd