Can't believe nobody's started this thread yet, but here goes.

Ugh. Detested the artwork so bad I could barely bring myself to read it. The future slang is back too. And hello? Light Lass is supposed to be a redhead.

As I mentioned in the "Calling the Roll" thread, I tend to doubt that this issue was solely the work of Jim Shooter. I suspect someone finished his plot, or else heavily reworked his script. It just does not read at all like his previous issues.

If not for Rich Johnston's rumor that Shooter has briefly left the book, I'd wonder what happened to his brain this issue. With the rumor, I suspect this book was finished in house during his brief absence, and that his name was kept on to placate his return.

Just a theory, of course, but I'm sticking with it until convinced otherwise.

I agree the art left a LOT to be desired. I also agree with veryvery that the inking seems to have been much of the problem

I thought for a moment I was reading LSH31C, though I've seen way better artwork in that book. Plus the cartoonish style was discordant with the murder of Cazhmir and the threat of rape. I wonder if FJM stopped working when Shooter did or the other way around? I would honestly prefer they skipped a month than publish inappropriate art that works against the story.

Despite this, the story did move forward quite a lot but at the expense of the space pirates, who were nothing but base rapists. I had hoped to see some new villains who had legs, but oh well.

Another unfulfilled wish is finding out more about Jo's past and the vehicular homicide he's charged with. At least Lyle gets his day in the sun and his nerd revenge, which is lost past due. (about 4 years)

M'Rissey's scheme was very clever and creative, and brings an end to the Legion vs U.P. plotline. Yeah, it was a bit contrived but not as contrived as, say, reintroducing 3boot R.J. Brande. Now the Legion is independent, rich beyond their wildest dreams and ready to rumble against a more promising threat -- an invading planet.

So, like everyone in the 31st century who can pay the price of a flight ring will be able to fly now? That's got to pose a traffic problem.

About selling rights to produce flight rings: Weren't we told early and often in this boot that flight rings were prohibitively expensive to make. Wasn't that why Lu could only have one?

yeah, the art was a bit rough. but it was much better that what was in Iron Fist. the story was interesting, but the art is awful. just simply really awful. oh, wait this the LSH board. sorry about that.

regarding the marketing of the rings: will the LSH be held responsible for accidents involving the rings. and if tons of people suddenly have them, will that lead to some kind of ban. the rings are a weapon of sort.

sometimes pirates just want to pillage and grab saucy wenches. nothing beyond that.

it's been over a day and only 3 responses. wow, you guys are really down on this book.

Not down: I just got LSH 41. It takes a couple of months to get in here.

I liked it.


Ikilles = Achilles, with his weakness being women?


I have to admit, the artwork did come off as ligththearted or kind of silver agey almost while the story was rather dark...it was kind of an interesting clash.


I liked m'rrissey...and I think his dialogue is proof that Shooter did indeed script this story as some fans have been wondering...that was Shooter dialogue all the way, as was the tendency to mention scientific concepts...Shooter has always done that, it is a holdover from his breaking into the business back in the Silver Age when the practice of including plausible scientific explanations, terminology and concepts in midstory was common place and usually some form of plot device for their frequent gimmic plots....it is a lost art.

Lots of modern writers try to do it with a modern sensitibility put on it, but it seldom sounds legitimate and it frequently comes off as pseudo intellectualism, or lazy writing. Whereas back in the Silver Age they actually did often use legitimate scientific terminology, concepts and principles...very few guys actually do that now. I think Mark Waid is one of the few modern writers to actually do it. And I know Jim Shooter does it because he reinvented the concept when he invented the New and Valiant Universe and had those universes and their superheroes based in the world of real physics and legitimate science and scientific theories.

That was definitely Shooter, at least doing M'rrisey's dialogue it was.


All in all I enjoyed it...but the art wasn't right for the story.


Come back soon Frances...you were missed.

I'll join the majority and give the artwork a thumbs down. I've never seen any work by Mr. Greene or Mr. Massengill before. Maybe there is a book out there somewhere that their styles would be good for. It isn't the Legion. Francis's cover, on the other hand, was nice. I liked the way they moved the title, number and UPC code to make room for the action.

The story was a mixed bag. The manhandling of Ayla, the murder of Cazhmir, and Norima's swooning all provide more fodder for the those who object to Shooter's characterization of women.

I liked the pacing of the story. Perhaps it would have been interesting to see the Ikonns developed a bit more, but it was nice to see a storyline wrap up and reach a conclusion. I grew up reading comic books that typically told a complete story in 17 pages. It doesn't bother me at all to see villians introduced, set up, and taken down in short order. It was nice to see Invisble Kid get his chance to prove himself to his critcs so soon, as well. They called him names last issue. He saved their butts this issue. A nice bit of character development and shift in the team dynamic that didn't have to drag out for months.

I like what Shooter is doing with the Legionnaires powers. He has been giving us some creative takes. This issue was Ayla's turn. I can't remember her ever being shown as this powerful before. It was fun to watch her let loose. Atom Girl in combat was good to see, as well. I like the way she is emerging as one of the 3boot heavy hitters. Back in the Adventure or Levitz era's would we have ever considered Vi to be the one you wanted next to you in fight?

It's nice that M'rissey didn't turn out to be a bad guy. The Legion's Business Affairs Manager. Hmmm. Let's see where it goes.

I can't figure out if the OKKK is part of a running gag or a clue as to what happened to Karate Kid and Trip. No time to rest. Another crisis is at hand. Manapul will be back for it, I hope...

I think his weakness was being between 2 statues on a collision course.

It looks like the Legion got lawyered up. I'd have like to have Deputy Chief of Staff Popoff's reaction to the latest turn of events.

actually, achilles' weakness was men in the Iliad. and freaking out over small things.

someone on this board said the pirates' names were references to some guys shooter had a beef with, could someone clarify?

oh but, seriously, sanford is a really really awesome artist. check out his DA page for stuff that's all him. http://greenestreet.deviantart.com/

i think his art is TOTALLY classy and slick, i've seen him draw in a more serious style so... yeah i don't know what happened here. it looks like they were pressed for time to me. maybe because of the convention season?

I usually refrain from posting until I've reread the story and had time to digest it, hence my scanty comments above. This story I have absolutely no desire to reread and doubt that I ever will. The artwork was just too appalling to bear in my book.

I do wonder if there's some connection between Val and Luornu being the ones swept away into the time stream and their parallel selves being time lost in that awful Countdown nonsense.

And what was that block of wood in Lyle's hand that the ropes were tied to? I kept thinking it was his hand. Then later I thought it was the OKKK chunk of wood. How OKKK was supposed to tell the team anything is beyond me.

The SP chick calling I love you after Jo was just gratuitous romantic rubbish.

I'd say the best thing about the issue was the Neal Adams variant cover.

It certainly had the feel of wrapping things up quickly just in case a new creative team was being considered...

But slowly and surely Shooter has been "cleaning up" aspects of Waid's run (the solitude of 31st century citizens, the kids vs. adults, etc.). I wonder if 3 Worlds will make it all for naught?

You are right of course. But still...one second he would be this big tough talking demonic looking guy and then when his girlfriend started in on him his personality totally changed and he didn't want any sort of confrontation at all.

I think there was some sort of parallel there.

Ikonns reference Carl Icahn, a corporate raider who tried to take over Marvel by buying junk bonbs in the mid 90's and pretty much drove their stock into the dirt so he could purchase more of it cheaply.


The Peril-Men reference Ron Perelman, an exec investor guy that ran Marvel in the late 80's early 90's and was the guy behind making them a publicly traded company...

Both of these guys were responsible for selling off a lot of Marvel assets and buying other crappy assets at discount prices using junk bonds, or purchasing them, that basically pushed the company into bankruptcy and nearly put it out of business in the 90's.

Basically these two guys screwed up Shooter's attempt to purchase Marvel in the early 90's and he feels he was used to drive the purchace price of Marvel up and that neither one of these guys were interested in acting in the best interests of Marvel Comics or Comics in general.


Shooter has some issues here...his aborted attempt to purchase Marvel was what lead to him creating the Valiant Universe instead.


Just so you know...Carl Icahn has had his eye on Time Warner, DC's parent company for a long time now as well.


He just wants to make money...something that drives both DC and Marvel...difference is, he doesn't care if there's comics industry left after he makes his.

in one of the first few issues of Shooter's run, maybe even the first issue (don't have it in front of me), there was a running gag that started with Lu and other L*s asking if Karate Kid was "OK," or "OK, KK?" which extended into other things ending in K being repeated throughout the issue - thus an OKKK message from Val is a signal to his teammates that Val is fine.

That is how I read it as well.

The rest of the issue? Blech.

The only things that were good about it were IK saving the day and M'Rissey's revelations. Aside from those two or three pages, it ain't worth the paper.

I'm sure you're right... but my first thought was that it was a hurried attempt to spell Rokk... indicating they had gone with Cosmic Boy

Diplomatically:

The art style would work on a more light hearted one shot or maybe the cartoon version. Nice otherwise, just not this story or particularly, this issue. This was a bad editorial decision, I don't fault the artist here.

Jo Nah This romeo thing is getting SO thick that I'm predicting right here, right now, this is a super-power at work. Seriously. They've been exploring his one-at-a-time powers so may be looking for a way to distinquish him from Superfamily. It didn't IMO make Atmos an interesting character so I'm not sure it's going to work here but...

The child speak didn't just return, it ramped up to every other word, like you know. Is Shooter mad at us?


Almost painful to read in the middle. Started well, ended well, carried through several plots quite well but in the middle I almost gave up.


Predicted M'Rissy's role/poweer on his first panel way back when so am patting myself on the back, vigoriously.

It was good to see the conclusion to a few ongoing plots though it did feel a bit rushed - maybe it was just the art being hit or miss that gave me that impression though?

Ultra Boy has Ultra pheremones obviously - blech! Lets see him deal with blokes hitting onto him, bet he'd get embarrassed and run away.

M'rissy being the Legions business manager is a good idea, though I'd have though Brainy could have filled that role. Am waiting to see where Shooter takes this next.

Pity the UPYA's got no screen time, I'd like to see them in action, particularly Spy. Does anyone else think they'll be inducted into the Academy once it's reintroduced? It will be re-introduced won't it?

And where is Sun Boy and the Terror Firma crew, Dream Boy and Wildfire? Hopefully Shooter will have them appear soon.

Hey Yo!



The UPYA's do seem to be a bit underutilized. Except for M'rissey and Giselle, I can't exactly think that any were needed for the story? I miss the Academy, I can see several of these characters filling a role there but some are more material for a Substiture Legion I think.

After doing my dutiful re-read:

It wasn't the art that bogged me down as I first thought, it was the child-speak.

I did find the opening splash and the frst panel quite dramatic! Then I got totally thrown out of the mood with the Ikilles-T-Wolf face off. Too cartooney.

The Flagship commander: I hope some writer picks up the backstory on this one. She gave Vi a toe-to-toe and got her goat to boot. Vi's comment "would'a beat her" and the commander's comments during the fight gave me a feeling that they already knew each other.

BTW, this fight I also found well done, particalarly depiction of Vi's powers.

Other things I really liked.

Opponents using knowledge of Legion to try and predict their moves.

The Legion Resource manual, a book to boot, tickles my funny bone.

As pointed out, there's things behind the names he has given the characters and some of the expressions used, like Holy Ni Neveh. This makes for good message board discussion.


Questions:

What exactly was it that caused the flagship to explode?

Were Saturn Girl and Colossal Boy "having a moment?"

Complaints about inkers and colorers: I'm not quite following. All the characters and objects seem quite distinct and there's color all over the place!

You rang?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but your phrasing here suggests to me that you find it merely slightly unfortunate that the abovementioned missteps – which might not even warrant much criticism - are taking away from all the good stuff Shooter’s doing with the book.

Well, apart from objecting to his characterisation of not merely women, but of anything and anyone by now, what I find “unfortunate” is that out of 24 pages in this issue a whopping 5 are devoted to who gets to rape whom in exactly what manner.

The whole thing is topped off with:

- Evil Girlfriend, wanting all of Bad Boss’s “loving” for herself, is being jealous of a soon-to-be-rape-victim. Conflating rape and consensual sex: check. Guess Ayla should be flattered by all the attention, she’s prime-grade rape-worthy material!

- Jealousy as a “typical womanly flaw”, whereas “philandering” (as being rape-happy seems to be portrayed here) is a typical male one: check.

- Evil Girlfriend having to die for the female weakness of “loving too much” or however you’d characterise the “I want him all to myself”-relationship she has with Bad Boss: check.


I could really do without all the threatened rape scenarios in every fourth comic I encounter. Dear writers, have your villain be evil in another, more creative way, please – especially if you’re not equipped to handle the subject of rape in a non-titillating, mature and subtle way. I don’t consider Shooter’s lovingly crafted five-pages-scenario, complete with sexual humiliation, tearful female, threats of lobotomy and clothes-pawing as anything approaching subtle. What I get from it is that he has thought a bit too intensely about the whole logistics of it, and that creeps me the hell out.

I also won’t consider Ayla’s near scrape with rape here as “okay” because she wasn’t actually raped and is kicking butt later on. She has been humiliated, was portrayed as totally helpless, did tear up etc. Having the butt-kicking scenario later on doesn’t absolve any writer from the fact that they’ve already served those who get their jollies from seeing such damsel-in-distress-situations, and served them well. (And if anyone here personally enjoys damsel-in-distress-situations, more power to you, but those can and should be searched out in more specialised media –those’ll have the added bonus of being more graphic - and not in mainstream comics. Mainstream comics, where DC still tries to keep up the illusion that they’re trying to market them to kids and teenagers. Uh-huh.)

In short: wretched. Unbelievably wretched. All the hallmarks of Shooter’s writing I’ve come to loathe over the last few months are present and accounted for, and I’m too tired out by the gender issues to comment any further on the lame-ass swear words, endlessly repetitive exposition, clunky intersection of the different plots and sledge-hammer resolutions to Legionnaire inter-squabbling.

Might I suggest Mr. Shooter branching out into in writing sequels to those Gor novels. I think that would be right up his alley. Meanwhile, I’m into the Legion for the super-heroics, and not for the sexual fetishes.

I'll take a good sexual fetish where ever I can find it.


Final Jeopardy Answer.
About 5.26% Alex.

Because of the Con I haven't had a chance to say how much I liked this issue and I'm surprised (although why should I be?) by the negative reactions.

I do see people's point of views, but when I read it ...I thoroughly enjoyed the art and story! Definitely not as clean, crisp, and intricate as Francis, but pleasant for my tastes. We've had a lot worse fill ins. You can see Sanford Greene's more cartoony art with LSH31stC #3 talked about here and here . A very different reaction than here.

I'm glad many plot points got wrapped up as we see the return of Legion World...er...Intruder Planet next issue.

insomniac girl: ditto on... everything you said. sometimes, because we have the same icon, i feel like we're multiverse versions of one another. we're holding hands. through the internets.

man i didn't even think about the fact that crazy girlfriend was also jealous of the rape victim. ahhh GOD!!

rape is handled so badly in most of what i read that i just wish no one would EVER use it.

wow. considering that the fetish in this case is rape fantasy, that's pretty gross and out of line.

:rolleyes:

Yes, I rang. I knew you wouldn't disappoint. You make good points. I don't agree with all of them 100%, but I think the story would have been better without some of these elements, and having them all in one issue created a pile on effect that disturbed me.

count me in as one who believes this issue to be a real stinker...pee=yew!

And yes, I also felt uncomfortable with the Ayla scene. It seemed inappropriate for a female teenager to be depicted this way and read by a predominantly male readership. It doesn't help any that she was picked on, the legionnaire who seems to be the one who doesn't like to sleep alone. It would've been more interesting to see the scene played out differently with Shadow Lass. I could've seen a black out blast coming from her eyes the moment the creep even started to come near her with his paws.

I sincerely hope this was one-note downer. I want to forget I ever bought it, let alone read it.

I agree with the discomfort of the threatened rapes. I kept wondering if there was some sort of power-damping effect of the cables. I am really sick of "florg" this and that. Every recent writer in memory has tried it (from "Bloody Nass" to the present, and it has just felt needless and fake. Funny how the long-term writers of old didn't need that as so obvious a crutch.
Everything did feel a bit...ok a LOT... rushed in the wrap-up.
I have been sick of the government doing whatever they will to the Legion, and did feel good that this Col. Pismo got his comeuppance. The problem I had with it was that it looked like it was given by someone who looks like a 12 year-old kid, and that Brainy was so accepting of it. I guess I need to re-read some issues.

I'll agree with PofoBo that this issue seems to have been a result of the recent "Shooter's gone wait a minnit no he isn't but he might be" semi-brouhaha. I'll agree it likely was finished in-house. Shooter had really cooled on the future-lingo speak recently and here it's usage goes through the roof, as if this issue's dialogue was based on Shooter's first issue back as writer.

The Ayla scene was supposed to make us feel uncomfortable and it worked.

As a fan of DC's YOUNG HEROES IN LOVE and Marvel's X-FORCE which later became X-STATIX, I had no problem with the cartoonier art used with such adult themes. Those 2 series also used cartoony and pop-art against all manner of adult themes. I liked the... contrast, I guess you would call it.

Now that I've read others' comments, it's now perfectly obvious that Jo has some ultra-pheremones going on. I'll echo 'Binger's sentiment that it should also affect males. THAT would be interesting.

M'Rissey might be my new favorite LSH character.

All in all, I enjoyed that this issue wrapped so much up.

Oh, and a shout-out to Superboy's backstory re: the names Shooter selected for the villains... I love that kinda stuff...

After a read and re-read of #44, I echo Nightcrawler's sentiments. I thought the issue was colorful, had a lot of action, spotlighted Light Lass and Atom Girl effectively, and wrapped up a few running plot threads very nicely. I enjoyed the issue.

I understand and agree with some of the complaints about the portrayal of women in the issue, but, taking a step back, there is a context to the storyline. First, the Ikkonns (sp?) are basically low-life pirates, and pirates tend to rape and plunder as an occupation. The situation where the Ikkonns were going to savage their prisoners was not only believable, but to be expected under the circumstances.

This issue resolved three types of menaces the Legion had been facing - an overwhelming military force (SPs), a subversive bureaucratic threat (UP) and an anti-social animalistic attack (Ikkonns). I think the story documented well the different aspects of evil Legionnaires have to face on a regular basis, some of which is not very pleasant at all. In regard to Light Lass, her discomfort in the hostage predicament and her resolve when freed was very powerful, showing she's no "light weight".

Right.

I certainly hope that is the case.

I'd wondered if that was so when Imra seemed to be overly aware of him, but I was afraid that I was over-reacting to the criticism of the portrayal of Imra in that issue and 'looking for an out' to explain it away.

It might be interesting if it ties into his problems controlling his powers, such as the time he saw a pretty girl on a billboard and went all flash vision-y.

It also makes him something more than a 'poor man's Superboy,' if he can channel his ultra-energies into other things, such as his charisma, or, perhaps, to the horror of Brainiac Five, his intellect...

It certainly did, but at least in my case that uncomfortable feeling was most prominently caused by the fact that Shooter’s given free reign to write scenes like this one, or the book as a whole, and I doubt that was one of the intended effects.

If there is a context, I want writers NOT TO CREATE THIS CONTEXT, again and again and again.

According to the “context” line of reasoning I could have the whole Legion wiped out by His Lordship MegaEvil McÜberboss, because, hey, I’d write that guy as so powerful he could do total wipeouts like that thrice before breakfast, and then say, “what do you expect to happen when the Legion encounters an enemy like that?”

I don’t really think that I should apply as a writer for the Legion with this concept just now, though. Just because there is a high chance that a certain scenario would turn out a certain way, that scenario doesn’t have an inbuilt guarantee to be good entertainment.

If you still think I’m just not willing to acknowledge the simplest chains of cause and effect – here: pirates are bad and therefore tend to do really bad things – then consider this:

Evil Girlfriend is ostensibly as much a pillage-and-rape-happy pirate as every other member of her group. But well, it turns out that she doesn’t really want to rape any of the Legion guys - she’s, after all, only wishing to sustain the luuuurve of Big Boss. That’s cause, you know, because all women secretly wish for luuuurve in their tender little hearts, no matter if they’re - on the outside - pillage-and-rape-happy pirates or not.

And how lucky that is for the Legion guys! It’s astonishing how in comics the male gender's always so preferentially treated by fate, whereas women in comics as a whole seem to have broken at least three mirrors during their daily morning routine. You know, bad karma and all that.

One could almost infer that male comic readers are spared any rape threats towards those characters they probably tend to identify with most – which are not necessarily the ones they like most, but those they’re most alike to.

Perish the thought.

Should you still think that this threatened rape scenario is realistic, because, well, in reality much more women get raped than men, then I can only say one thing:

Yes, this is realistic, but I read comics to enjoy myself, and not to continuously be reminded that I, as a woman, am in danger of being raped.

You can’t really compare these rape threats all that well to the other dangers that comics superheroes face on a daily basis. Yes, there’s death and dismemberment lurking around every corner, but

a) is there a high chance for me, as a woman, to get beaten/maimed because some supervillain wants to stop/kill me? No, there’s not, because I’m not a superhero and don’t get in these kinds of situations where I’m trying to stop Dr. Evil from blowing up the universe. This is not a realistic danger to me. Could I get raped? Much more likely.

and

b) these cheap “ooooh, I’m gonna rape you” scares are endlessly repeated in comics, and – as in this case – often written in an at least semi-titillating way. Think that instead of these, the newest Legion issue had a scenario devoted to the bad guys ruminating how they’re going castrate Timber Wolf, how exactly they’re going to assure that he won’t be able to fight back , have them start trying to undress him, and have him cry a bit while you’re at it, why don’t you? Have that going on for five pages. Then imagine similar scenes in a lot of the comics you read. Yup, they’re delivering a veritable castrate-o-rama all week long. Next week it’s Lyle’s turn. What I’m trying to get at with this example is that generally, “non-rape-damage” during the fighting of evil is differently presented: it’s not always the same harm that gets done, it doesn’t pop up again and again, and it isn’t addressed in such loving, creepy length. In this issue here, Timber Wolf gets away with a punch to the face.


As for Kid Quislet saying that Light Lass shows that she’s no light weight later on, and that this fact is somehow redeeming what has come before - I’ve already addressed why I don’t think so in my last post.

So, uh, how do I end this epic novel I’ve written here? Oh yeah, space pirates. Let’s see them do some moer plundering instead of having them make all those unwanted sexual advances. I’m totally down with the plundering.

i'd even be down with the rape aspect if, like insomniac girl stated, the guys were getting creepy threats that lasted for pages and pages. actually, no that would annoyed me too given shooter's past with such scenarios but... yeah. this issue was horrible.

i remember thinking "man, if he gets nura and querl together, maybe i can survive this" but how much was i not expecting creepy rape-tastic issue?! rape is not something that should be treated lightly, like, in real life ayla might need some down time at the very least after that and it would probably resonate through out hte story. if shooter was a good writer. except he's not and this is the cheap, tawdry, base sort of thing that just exemplifies the sexist and bad writer

Insomniac, what you are ververy are saying doesn't really make much sense to me, nor do I think ya'll are being fair by atrributing a character commiting a criminal act as some kind of personal view of the writer.


Shooter is showing a woman on the verge of getting raped and so he is sexist?

30 years ago he showed Bruce Banner on the verge of getting raped..was that also sexism?

Oh wait, that was Shooter being a homophobe.

If Shooter shows someone on the verge of getting murdered does that mean he endorses murder?

If he shows theft does that mean he endorses theft?

Rape is a heinous crime...so is murder, and Supervillains attempt to do it all the time.

Should we remove all attempts at heinous crimes from comics books...what then is the point of having superheroes in them?


Shooter is being mischaracterized...he intentionally writes stuff that is shocking so that it will stick in your mind...he doesn't want you to like his villains or consider thier crimes to be acceptable...he wants you to consider them criminals...and not find them admirable.


And he modeled the Ikonns after a corporate raider or a modern pirate, who essentially cares nothing for his fellow man and he had them commit acts pirates did commit. They did commit rape.

I wonder if ya'll would be saying the same things about these stories if you didn't know Shooter was writing them and were more focused on the story than Shooter's undeserved reputation as a sexist/homophobe/promurdertheftdomesticviolence.


You aren't supposed to like the bad guys, you are supposed to think ill of them...and Shooter has shown men on the verge of being raped before...and it was much more graphic than anything in this comic. Just because the writer writes something doesn't mean he himself advocates it. It's one thing if you don't like his writing..but ya'll are sticking undeserved lablels on him by directly attributing acts of his characters to his own personal beliefs. And that is very much a double standard, as comic writers show bad guys doing bad things all the time...and I don't hear them getting the same labels.

Ya'll don't like Shooter or his writing, I get it. There is absolutely nothing anyone can do or say to change that...but the criticism ya'll are directing his way is inaccurate. There is nothing to prove he is any kind of sexist or homophobe...and there's certainly nothing in history as a Legion creator to justify the claim that he is a bad writer.

Jim Shooter created:

Princess Projectra
Karate Kid
Nemesisi Kid
Ferro Lad
The Khunds
The Dominators
The Controllers
The Dark Circle
The Fatal Five
The Emeral Empress and the Emerald Eye of Erkon
Validus
The Persuader
Starfinger
Universo
Dr. Regulus
Shadow Lass
Laurel Kent
Rond Vidar
The Sun Eater
Grimbor
Charma
Pulsar Stargrave
The Wanderers
Esper Lass
Calorie Queen
The Tornado Twins

Or basically about 50-60% of the foundation of the Legion.


The Legion, even the reboots wouldn't remotely be the same book without Jim Shooter.

He created just about every major villain in Legion history...that was his greatest strength. And I think he proved he definitely has a talent for doing it that few comics creators in history can match. And you could say he still has that talent in spades...because you are going to remember the villains in this story. And you are going to remember this story.

Jim Shooter is at the absolute minimum, the third most important creator in the history of the Legion...hardly any Legion stories in the past 20 years would have been possible without Jim Shooter's contribution to this book. And just about every creator to ever work on this title, is a huge fan of Jim Shooter's Legion work...including Mark Waid, the guy who created the last two versions of the Legion. In fact he's probably the biggest Shooter fan of them all.


You will never like him...but that doesn't mean he's a sexist or a bad writer. I'd be willing to bet that somehwere in that impressive list of his creations, is a reason you like the Legion.

Thanks...and just because you appreciate it, here's one more for you:

Velmar = Marvel

To the moderators: I did come back to delete my previous post but we are unable to do so. Definetely not my normal behavior and for that I apologize.

Okay, lets everyone back off a bit here.

Superboy, I think we all know that you are a big Shooter fan. We all also understand that he has had a huge role in the creative history of the Legion. But that doesn't mean that every time someone is critical of the man's current writing we need to hear about everything he has ever done in the past. We get it.

The topic at hand is Shooter's writing now. I know I've been critical of his current tenure, but I have also tried to be fair about it, and I enjoyed most of issue 43. And on a re-read of 44, I found more things to like about it than previously. But overall, it was still not that great from a writing perspective. You can pick from the womens' issues in the story (which I can completely see veryvery's & Insomiac Girls's POV here) or the pirates or the "future curse words" or whatever (all of which I found to be cliche and/or cheesily written).

I don't know Jim Shooter, so I don't claim to know his personal attitudes towards women. But what I have read in this current issue was just a sub-par story with shoddy illustration.

And that is really all there is to it. You don't need to defend Jim Shooter's honor.

Y'know, given the Ikonns red skin and mythological-ish names, I was really expecting a new Tyr to show up. I'm kind of disappointed that he didn't.

I think my biggest problem with the bound-up Ayla scenario was how long it seemed to go on.

Notice how some of the mostly male Ikonns are pawing at each other, too? Refreshing probably isn't the right word to use here, but it's worth noting.

I wonder how long the UP kids were held before the LSH got there? And what they endured?

It isn't clear- would such actions have occured similarly if the Peril Men had beaten the Ikonns? The implication is probably that it would, but we don't really know.

Even though this issue veered into squirm-inducing territory, I hope Ikilles and company appear again. With a touch more characterization.

'Cause the LSH *really* needs some new recurring foes. Who was the last non-Adventure created villain that showed up more than once or twice? Tangleweb?

Hordes of Namelessness don't count.

As for me, I really would. I came into Shooter's start on the threeboot with not much knowledge about him - I hadn't knowingly read any of his stories before, and about the only thing I was aware of was him being one of the main Legion creators - and I had, admittedly, read his interview with the hypersexualised description of the Legionnaires, and wondered why on earth anyone would write something like that.

So, with the Garth-Imra-relationship, I did apply the interview to it, but I don’t really feel I’m reaching when I point out that in both the interview and the comic, she’s characterised as super-controlled and super-competent, but really loves to be “treated like a lady”, i.e. let her boyfriend/man be the boss.

Whether that’s a clichéd gender stereotype or not obviously is debatable – I say yes, lotsa people around here say no.

I didn’t know back then that that infamous “Cos slaps Ayla” scene which is making its way around here once in a while was written by Shooter, but I sure found it gender-coded and tasteless anyway. (I don’t know how the story went on after that – if there were any consequences for Cos, because that would possibly make only Cos sexist and not the story itself.)

What I’m trying to say is that I got annoyed about Shooter’s characterisation because of Shooter’s characterisation and not because I’ve followed his long career, deemed him a horrible human being/writer/whatever and am now taking the chance to grind an axe with him.

I admit your point that he’s willing to spread the unpleasantness around to both genders – I’m not familiar with the Hulk issue, so I won’t comment on what I haven’t read, but I see that there’s a guy being threatened with rape. I’ve also now found one panel in the Legion issue where there’s a female Ikonn in on the threatening action.

That doesn’t take away from the gratuitousness of the whole thing. Considering the Ikonns scene, Shooter’s writing about rape is to subtlety what his „Hey, fellow pirate, that object I saw lying just right there is suddenly gone! It's almost as if an invisible person had moved it!” is to foreshadowing.

And that’s were writing can get sexist, even in cases when the writer isn’t intending to be sexist – which is the vast , vast majority of cases, I’d imagine. I certainly can’t imagine anyone at DC running around foaming at the mouth screaming: “Hateful women! Must mistreat them in art and writing!” I most definitely do not think that of Shooter, either.

You were asking “Is it sexist if a guy gets threatened with rape?” Not if you can count the cases in which such a scenario crops up in fiction and find that this plot is used exceedingly rare. Now it would become a sexist stereotype if it cropped up en masse and became a continuously repeating pattern that was constantly happening to one gender because of that person belonging to this gender.

For the combination “women” and “rape”, we’re at this stage in popular media - we’ve been at this stage a long time, already, and that’s why I don’t need to see any women threatened with rape anymore. For that matter, I don’t want to see any men threatened with it, either, especially if it’s written with sledge-hammer-sensitivity.

As for “Well, what do you expect from space pirates? They’re evil! Rape shows how evil they are!” – I’ve already addressed that quite extensively before.

I, as well, do not see why Shooter’s admittedly numerous and defining contributions to the Legion should forbid anyone to look critically at his writing.

Thank you for editing, Blacula.

Phantom Girl - without addressing any of the personal insults you felt you needed to dish out:

If it is apparently iron-clad logic to you - and why wouldn't it, after all, you suggested it to me - that I should simply stop reading Jim Shooter's run if I'm that offended by it, then I don't see why you shouldn't find it just as logical if I applied the same tactic to you.

Therefore: no one forces you to read my posts, and if you find them so offensive, please stop reading them.

I regret that I'm making reading this board such a chore for you, but I bet there's some kind of killfile implementation to block me. I guess we'll both be the happier for it.

The "women in peril" bit is way overdone, perhaps as someone mentioned, because it makes us "uncomfortable," unfortunately more uncomfortable than "men in peril."

Few people even now are not guilty (in my experience) of reacting moreso when it is a female, child or even puppy dog in peril than when it is a man, particularly a white man, in peril.

Writers have to push these buttons in order to be affective, don't they? One of the goals is to extract some type of emotion from the reader. Shooter did that.

Writers can also be effective by proferring a controversial subject in order to create "buzz," public discussion about the story. Shooter did that.

Writers can try and effect change by subtly promoting ideas. Most of us have stories from when we were young reading even comics, in which out personal values were effected, generally to the more open viewpoint of the value and skills inherent in diversity.

If Shooter had this last goal in mind, I think he missed the mark. That Ayla was put into a position that particularly strikes our inculcated buttons, fine I suppose. But ultimately, she didn't pull her own bacon out of the fire. Her anger at being released aside, she was still the "woman in distress." I think that's the part that makes the scene a step "backwards."

One thing I do object to, is the mods continuing to permit this open bashing of Shooter, a bashing that has even extended to other posters on the board. This has not been permitted in the past by the Mods, as I recall I even got in a bit of a tussle when I simply offered a different opinion than a popular writer. I never went so far as to make personal attacks, a much worse "offense."

Hello? Mods? Double Standard?

I think this is an awesome idea.

On the one hand, having been sexually abused, just about every depiction of rape I've seen in media pretty much fails to be 'worth it' from a storytelling sense, *for me.*

If I were to pick one example of, to my eyes, a *mature* presentation of sexual abuse, it would be from Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, where his girlfriend Abby is revealed to have been a sex offender when she was younger. It kind of turned my head, since I liked the character, and I was left wondering if I could still feel comfortable liking the character knowing what she'd done.

In the end, it, and I realize this sounds whacky, prompted me to think about my own childhood, which I'd somehow managed to never do, just obliviously sailing through life without any sort of potentially scary self-reflection. Turns out it wasn't traumatic to relive in my mind (actually kind of revelatory, as I recalled being a passive-aggressive little jerk after the fact, driving that person out of my life), and I ended up with a strange sense of pity for my abuser, since that person was obviously an unhappy and damaged individual, and I wondered if *they* had recovered as evenly as I had...

On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if there will *ever* be a time or place for a thoughtful or meaningful presentation of that subject matter, since every single author / artist / director whatever who attempts to do so has to somehow atone for the 10,000 others that came before them and 'got it wrong.'

Rape ain't goin' away, unfortunately.

And it's too often used in media as a code for 'really bad guy' (such as the transformation of Dr. Light from a fairly standard wannabe evil mastermind to a serial rapist) or, worse, as some sort of life-changing event to turn a character into a different person (such as Red Sonja getting raped and then getting superpowers / a new sense of self-confidence out of the deal, which kind of mirrors what happened to Shrinking Violet, to bring this around to Legion-specific matters, when the Imskian seperatists captured her, even if no sexual violence was implied, the 'girly girl' suddenly 'mans up' because she's victimized, which is creepy).

And then there's the worst of the worst, IMO, shows like Oz, Saw or Hostel (or softer 'torture porn,' like 24, which are even more insidious, as they make *heroes* of the abusers!) that pander to the urge to dominate or victimize others, and make the person who is dominating / abusing other look 'tough' or 'decisive' or 'right-thinking' or something lame like that.

The irony is that it no longer really reflects the audience of the sci-fi/fantasy/comic book genres. We live in a generation that has grown up with heroes named Lt. Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner and Aeryn Sun and Jadzia Dax and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena and Kim Possible, while 'damsels in distress' that get knocked out and need to be saved have names like Ron Weasley and Xander Harris and John Conner and Tom Paris.

This is hardly the John Wayne audience.

And the movies that *do* have the menfolk in peril, and women saving their asses, are often even more effective, because it's newer and fresher than the tired old 'woman tied to the train-tracks' cliche (which was modified from the original story, where a woman rescued a *man* tied to the train tracks, making it an early example of a retcon as well!).

Is there a single John Rambo or Conan quip that's as memorable and powerful a moment as Ripley showing up in the forklift and shouting to the Alien queen, 'Get away from her, you bitch!'?

If any Legion writer, Shooter included, thinks that fans of this genre aren't *LONG PAST* ready for women being heroes and not victims, then they need to be put out to pasture, because some of the generation that grew up with Ripley and Sarah Conner *have grandchildren already.*

The times aren't 'a-changing.' They changed decades ago. Some people just seem to have been left behind...

Mad Max Queers live on in space!

Did anyone notice the blond-mohawk wearing boy-Ikonn on p.3? The one who saw the coil of vine disappear on p.4? With his bare chest and little fur collar and bald boyfriend (notice the arm around shoulder in two panels, certainly taking contact beyhond bromance), he's pretty obviously the boytoy who was killed early on in the 2nd Mad Max movie.

But at the same time, isn't the tough-girl-who-kicks-ass kind of a new cliché these days? Can't we have both, like we see in the real world?

I've always thought Shooter answered those questions in that way because he was answering them at the request of the organized fandom for publication in a Legion fanzine...not because he is some Legion sex-life obsessed fanatic. Jim Shooter isn't obsessed with the Legion, that would be us.


IMO...it's the fans that are usually more interested in those questions, not the creators.


For proof he was probably responding to questions or speculation...check out this description:


"Not as plain as you paint her" seems to indicate that he was responding to questions, and we just aren't seeing what those questions were. Before judging him as a some kind of Legion sex-life obsesses crazed maniac, wouldn't it be prudent to find out what sort of questions he was being asked?


I'd say it went something like this:

Questioner: Hey Jim..we just brought you back into comics with our organized fandom after your career was basically over. Not to obligate you or imply that you owe us somehting...but would you mind answering a few questions for us?

Shooter: Sure I'll answer some questions for you guys, as honestly as I possibly can. What do you want to know?


Quesioner:

We want to know the stuff that will never be printed in the comics.

Who is involved with who and why?
Is so and so gay?
Are so and so doing something on the side?
How does BB react to being married to 2 women?
What do you feel makes these characters human, what are their flaws, what are their strenghts?
This is the way we see it: LL is like this.
Etc.

I don't see it as him just casting the female Legionaires in a negative light...he is pointing out their positives and their negatives. The men as well as the women.


If you look he's calling Ultraboy and Timberwolf neurotic fruitcakes...he says Starboy is as dumb as a stump. Calls Wildfire dull. Calls Mon-El insecure. About the only character that didn't get negative aspects of his character pointed out...was Superboy, and if you notice, he doesn't answer any questions about Superboy's sexuality either.

Was that because he didn't have an opinion on it? Or because that would have definitely gotten him fired.

Almost certainly he had an opinion on it...questioning Superman's sex life with Lois is the original comic book sex question.


I've met some that want to be treated that way...and I've met some that don't. I don't think there is a genral way women like to be treated.


Look...I have all sorts of issues with Shooter's descriptions..and I don't agree with 90% of them, in particular the one about Mon-El being some kind of insecure dullard. And I don't particularly like his take on Duo Damsel either.

But I do think he was giving those responses to fans who were asking questions of that nature.


That was a lame scene and I'm not quite sure what the purpose of it was. Maybe the entire purpose of it was to create controversy. In an otherwise totally homogenized title.

Maybe he did want Cosmic Boy to be sexist...so he wouldn't be considered bland, as he was then and still is, and maybe that was one of the few things he could get away with doing under Boltinoff's editorialship...


I don't either but I am going to offer counterpoints to criticisms I don't agree with. Shooter has produced a fair share of complete crap in his career...but usually the crap he produces is when he's going totally corporate and focused on merchandising revenue.

I personally think the guy was way ahead of his time at infusing characters with very realistic personality flaws or quirks, regardless of the tendency for cheesy dialogue...I think he still is ahead of the curve on it.

If anything...I think Shooter's writing is a little too realistic, just as his answers are a little too honest. But that doesn't mean he's a bad writer, because it takes talent to do that.

I don't see the personal bashing as much as the "I don't like Shooter's Legion and here's why." Two different things. John Byrne seems to get more ire than anyone around here (possibly Rob Liefeld), but I've let my dislike of such posts be known to the authors and I wish people wouldn't indulge in such behavior.

Please link us to anything you feel is more of a personal attack than one of taste.

PG was nice enough to come back and right the wrong. Thanks PG! I've read the post and you bring up a valid point of view, but could have done without the personal attacks.

As for the other incident alluded to...without going into detail...a few posts deemed "personal attacks" were removed. And the person who was involved who seemed to have an ax to grind due to an incident on another board was removed from Moderating only*...not banned or anything else as the situation didn't warrant it.

*Only because we (the Administrators) felt a Moderator shouldn't conduct in such flaming behavior.

wow i so don't care what characters he created! none of that gives him a pass to be sexist and homopobic, what!! i don't care if he founded america, that doesn't mean we can't criticize him. also, creating a bob from planet whatever and slapping a uniform on them? ALSO does not make them a good writer. because that's pretty much what characters are, they're bill from where ever with the power of whatever. holy crap, who cares what he made?! that does not give him carte blanche to just write whatever.

you know what makes a good writer? writing something well. and to me, writing something sexist or racist or homophobic or intolerant automatically means you're not a good writer. you are automatically bad at your job and full of fail. you can cover topics like that, you can depict characters that are like that, but how you structure your story and the context and treatment of such characters and happenings, THAT is what determines whether they are a good writer or not.

if neil gaiman writes a rape scene, i'm not horrified, he usually makes me think and handles it in a way that MAKES SENSE and treats it with the gravity it deserves. shooter writes a rape scene for cheap drama. something so traumatic and scarring shouldn't be treated in a trivial way by a writer (and yes the WRITER is treating it in a trivial way, not just the characters). if the writer actually thinks something his characters are doing is MESSED UP then a good writer gives something to the audience to help convey that.

let's say a character mugs another character. to show that the writer doesn't support what the character just did, they might show how their action effects the character they robbed, they might have another character be a mouth piece for them, etc etc. none of that here. shooter uses rape as a cheap way to add an antagonist. he's not trying to make the reader think about how messed up rape is or how it affects ayla, if anything he sets up a discourse that trivializes the act of rape even more.

man this... seriously this is getting really horrifying. I don't understand why people aren't more freaked out by how shooter's been writing! like... he is the definition of homophobia and sexism. no i don't think he runs around spewing hate but you don't have to be that in order to be sexist and homophobic!

i think the greatest example of his sexist writing is the fact that given Norima's reaction to jo? his writing is so sexist that it's fully plausible to many readers that her reaction to Jo of crazy-love might not mean anything and just be a throw away line. we also don't know if PROJECTRA has gone nuts or possessed or if she's just "projectra" because shooter writes women behaving nonsensically!

if he wasn't sexist and homophobic, i would be able to stomach his subpar writing. i would. as i've said before, i've got a really thick skin for ridiculously bad writing. you an't tell me that his dialogue isn't weird and choppy and nonsensical (gim making bizarre comments to shrinking violet about her education). m'rissey runs around doing things that Querl should have caught him on, that lyle would have been able to do, introducing multitudes of new characters for no reason, reconciling lyle's relationship with his family whom he shouldn't forgive?!

what makes these issues utterly incomprehensible is that he writes the boys FAIRLY WELL. so well in fact that it makes the female's reactions to any stimulus EVEN MORE confusing. if EVERYONE was being insane i'd go "oh he's just a bad writer and that's just how he writes" but he is so sexist that i CANNOT UNDERSTAND HIS CHARACTERIZATION. i DO NOT know what he is trying to tell us about ANY female character except that they ALL LOVE SEX. that is ALL i've been able to get out of him. that's it. i can tell you that cham is adorable and fun, that garth is trying his best to lead the team and getting stressed out about it, i can tell you that querl is snarky and well meaning and always five steps ahead. i can tell you that lyle is smart and brave and quick thinking, i can tell you that jo is brave, sort of dumb and hormonal, with something dark in his past. i can tell you that jan has a soft spot for animals and likes naked time.

i cannot tell you anything about the girls. NOTHING except ayla "doesn't like to sleep alone", but apparently NONE OF THE GIRLS DO. their agendas seem utterly wrapped up in sex, sex with MEN, and codependent or submission sex with men!! tell me ANYTHING about ayla! or saturn girl! or triad? is saturn girl a good leader?!! I DON'T KNOW. i CANNOT TELL.

perhaps the only responsibility any writer has is "CONVEY MESSAGE". he fails at this and therefore: is a bad writer. one of the vehicles by which he reaches his "bad writer"-ship is sexism. actually, if he WASN'T sexist, he might sort of be good!

ahhh god. ON TOP OF THIS. some of you actually think that pointing all these things out should get me BANNED or my posts DELETED? really. that's... so awesome. i'm so glad that the way you handle a female concerned about sexism in a book is to suggest their removal from your presence.

what horrifies me more is that some of you AGREE that he's being sexist or homophobic and yet this isn't an issue for you. that's... wow. i mean i really don't know what to say to that because the point is pretty much moot then whether he is or isn't, right? wow.

god!! i actually feel like i'm facing a moral dilemma with this book. i WANT querl/nura with such a FIERCE passion ever since nura died but this book keeps checking off the boxes of the "DANGER, YOU NEED TO NOT BUY THIS OR SUPPORT THIS PERSON" list.

on the other hand i LOVE manapul's art, this issue was even more upsetting because i didn't even get the benefit of it being the artist i'm reading it for. i don't know what to do!! do i support the book against my morals out of fear that it'll get cancelled and that i'll miss the character interactions that i DO want?! i feel so upset now! i wasn't even that upset after reading the issue but somehow all this made me more horrified. maybe it's the reflection and the accumulation that suddenly became more visible.

Thanks veryvery. I guess you just made BB's point.

You want to edit out all of your "Jim Shooter is sexist and homopobic" every other sentence or do I?

I get that it's your opinion, but it isn't shared by everyone, nor is it a fact because you say it is.

I'm sorry if that's all you see when reading the series, but perhaps you shouldn't read the book anymore if it upsets you so much.

i think i was explaining thoroughly why i feel this way about his writing. it's not like i'm jsut screaming it at the top of my lungs here. i also explained, yet again, that i think his characterization of the males in this series is good and fun and explained why i thought so as well with many examples so i don't think "that's all i see" when reading this series. if you feel the need to delete things, that's your prerogative but i really don't see anything i said as being... i'm not sure what you think i'm being.

it's fine with me if people think that a writer is bad or good, if people have different tastes, if they like it when element lad has a pink uniform and i like the black one. but on a subject like this, such as sexism and homophobia, i don't think treating it like a simple "difference of opinion" type thing is viable. for me, sexism and homophobia are important, moral issues, and i don't think me saying someone or something is sexist or homophobic and pointing out my reasoning is somehow horrible or a reason to have my post edited.

so i'm allowed to have a opinion as long as the opinion isn't "shooter is sexist and homophobic" and then i point out my reasoning for it? okay. well that's fine then, i'm very fine with not participating on this board any longer. i was happy to engage with several of you, many of you seem like nice people but i'll probably be much happier off the board given whats transpired over the course of my very short stay here.

Do what you have to, veryvery, but I don't think you were out of line at all, and I for one wish you'd stick around.

Looks like this issue could rival the Pro-Fem for controversy. I haven't read it yet, so will reserve judgment, but must say that the issues raised in this thread are very interesting, both pro and con.

Veryvery, I don't quite agree with you regarding the absence of character in Shooter's females, but you've made your points clearly. The rape/threat scene(s) do sound troubling, but it's the sort of thing I think I really have to read before commenting.

The moral question regarding which comics one chooses to support is a critical one, and highly personal. It's important for us to examine why writers write the scenes they do, how it affects us and how they might have done it differently, or better. This is how we move - or stumble - forward. I echo Matthew E's comment in that I hope you stick around, but accept that some of us will continue to disagree with you and, at some point, further discussion does not advance the issue.

Set, I found your comments on how rape in comics is used, and how you have reacted personally, to be very insightful. It's a big issue, and, as you say, it's not going away, in real life or in the popular media.

...er, going back to the "OKKK", my first impression after the initial confusion was that the three Ks instead of one meant it was from Lu. But the other explanation is just as good or better.

And as for the whole raging debate, everyone just remember that the subject in question is very charged and sensitive. To me, it's completely understandable that those scenes would offend people. And when people are offended on a deep, personal level, the reactions tend to reflect that. I myself have mixed reactions, but I respect how people could have very intense ones.

veryvery, I hope you'll reconsider. I've enjoyed your occasional presence in the "Roundtable" thread particularly. The moderators are within their powers to interject in heated situations, but I hope that discussion of such an obviously important issue can continue in some form.

You are quite capable of phrasing your objection as, 'this scene is *completely* sexist, with Ayla being the one who gets threatened with rape for pages and pages, tearing up, etc. and being *very* capable of sending her attacker into the stratosphere, hands tied or not, and I think Shooter has a history of this sort of thing and here's why.'

Dragging speculation about what sort of person he is personally isn't helpful. Alan Davis draws teens who appear to be *very* young, sometimes in romantic situations. Would it help the discourse to say that this is some sort of sign that he's a pedophile and that there is 'something wrong' with people who like his work? Not at all. It's the opposite of helpful.

They say in law school that; If you don't have the facts, argue the law. If you don't have the law, argue the facts. If you don't have either, pound the table. You are 'pounding the table' by name-calling and appealing to emotion, *and you don't have to!* You have a valid case, and every right to an opinion, so all you are doing, IMO, by resorting to name-calling is putting people into defensive mode, as it's all too easy to see 'blatantly misogynistic and / or homophobic' to an attack on the person who liked that presentation as a misogynist or a homophobe. (Which do exist in our society, but I sure can't imagine an honest-to-gosh homophobe being comfortable for long on these boards!)

If you feel unable to remain in a situation where everyone doesn't agree with everything you say, I'm not confident that leaving a message board will make much of a difference, in the long-term.

You might even consider hanging around on this message board full of people as practice for the real-world, where you might find yourself working for a boss who actually *is* sexist or homophobic.

(I had one boss who would *freak* when I'd call myself his secretary. He'd constantly insist that I was some sort of Project Coordinator, but my duties consisted of running his paperwork around the office, booking his travel arrangements, screening his calls, and even sometimes fetching his lunch! He may well have been homophobic as well, but I pretty much ignored his jokes, so I have no idea, nor, really, do I care. His personal philosophy wasn't important to me, and I learned long ago that there are billions of people in this world, most of them don't believe as I do and *I can't change all of their minds*.)

As there is no other planet-of-people-who-think-like-I-do to live on, I have decided to take a breath and allow other people to live their lives, even if they believe stuff I don't.

Awful gracious, tolerant even, of me, I know, but I've chosen not to get an ulcer over what other people think, say and do. I give myself enough grief with the stuff that *I* think, say and do, which I actually have some say over!

Say all the strong things you want to say. But don't be surprised or distressed to find out that every other person on this message board is a real person with opinions and beliefs of our own, and we may not all agree with every little thing.

Differences are what makes the world worth living in. If I knew that *everything* I believed was the absolute end-all, be-all of existence, and there was nothing left to know, no reason at all to ever talk to anyone, I'd be pretty bored. Finding out that I am *wrong* can be exciting, because I'm physically done growing, and the only way for me to grow now is by learning new things.


Edit to add: is there some way to list our real name in our Profile? I kinda hate anonymous posting during discussions like this, as it lends the impression that I'm only saying things under the cover of anonymity, instead of saying stuff that will be associated with me, a real living breathing person.

-Ian Turner, real person, with every bit as much a right to an opinion as the real person he's responding to.

This echoes my feelings on this. The board has a standing rule against personal attacks.

veryvery, you and Insomnia Girl have made some valid points and you are certainly entitled to your opinion. The issue does seem to be a hot button one for both of you. However, if you cannot go back, look at your post and see where some of what you said would be considered a personal attack, then perhaps these boards are not for you. I am not saying that you should stop posting here. I think you have much to contribute.

Set (Ian) and Quis (Rob) are doing a better job than I am at arguing the point, so I'll try not to ruin their well throughout posts.

The Rules -

Extrapolating about an individual based on an ancient interview you read only part of and a work of fiction will not be tolerated. Plain and simple.

I didn't know this site had a rule against creator bashing. LOL that explains some of the responses to my Byrne bashing. I actually feel pretty bad about that now as I was coming here seeking to commiserate with other Byrne bashers.

Anyway, now that I know that you guys don't want us to do that I won't do it anymore. I still have a hard time figuring out why all Legion fans don't want to bash Byrne along with me. But I did tell myself when I came back here I would respect the spirit of the site...when in Rome...

Sorry about that, because I have bashed him pretty heavily, not really personally...but definitely certain aspects of his creative intellect.

veryvery, I personally don't have a problem with you haveing a strong opinion on the subject, in fact it was probably the fact that your opinion on it was so strong that lead to me replying to you. I tend to have strong opinions on certain subjects myself. But as general rule, if you have a strong vocal opinion on things you are likely to encounter those with an equally strong opinion on the opposite side, in just about any topic, and there will be those that are going to want to challenge your points.

That's what I was doing...I wasn't attempting to attack you and I hope it didn't come off that way, I just strongly disagree with some of the conclusions you drew.

Wait?

I thought Byrne was a legal exception to the rule?

I realized somwething not long ago... not only am I a fan of the LSH, I'm a fan of LSH fans.


I hope that Superboy, Ricardo, veryvery, Insomniac Girl, Phantom Girl and everyone else continues to post and have their strong opinions, because I for one enjoy reading them. I'm on here quite a lot, and believe me this forum is all the more interesting when you all are here too.

I agree with a lot of what I read and disagree with a lot as well... but I sure never tire of reading all of your intelligent well-thought-out comments.

I hate that LSH fandom is already so splintered, so it's my personal hope that the fans who post here, at least, can get along (despite being fans of different LSH eras/versions).

Your fan,

MLLASH

Just to clarify things (and hopefully not muddy them for you). You are able to say here things like "I didn't like (insert creator's name) use of XYZ.", "I think So-and-so's art this issue was terrible.", "I've never liked John Doe's writing style.", or "I think this was a bad story because of ..." However saying things like "Joe Schmoo is a hack!", "Arty Artist should just stop drawing.", or "Ed Editor kicks puppy dogs." gets into personal attacks.

Sometimes it can be a fine line between criticism and a personal attack. The board asks that you err on the side of being respectful.

Stay tuned for Legion of 3 Worlds...

That's exactly my point and the reason I argued over Adriana's remarks a few weeks ago. Her reasoning was absolutely fine, agreed or not, BUT she crosses the line when she extrapolates (IMO) fiction for the artists.
Just because Shooter writes girls in a way she doesn't like doesn't mean he believes girls are like that. I have never seen an interview in which he states something like that.
I, for one, love her participation here and it is always a joy to see a girl in this typically male environment.

I didn't like the art. Previous artists on this title have managed to differentiate the characters ages- here IK looks as old as UB. It's a cartoony art, and might have it's place with a less diverse cast...

The story wrapped up a number of plots and moved the LSH into a better position for protecting the universe. Shooter provide us with a simple story, with a simple solution- sometimes that's all we get with a four colour, 22 page comic.

The pirates were B movie villains- one note characterizations. M'Rissey provided most of the detail, and that couched in legal speak and speed jargon. Since I expect to see more of him then the pirates, I'm okay with that trade off.

I don't know if this was answered or buried under all the debate...

M'Rissey sold the marketing rights. The rings might still be too expensive to produce, so the marketing rights don't mean jack right now. He simply sold an empty bag of goods.

No, that's Rob Liefield you're thinking of.

I'd feel wierd dissing a creator *too* badly, because some of them read this site (such as Barry Kitson and Francis Manapul). I felt about two centimeters tall when I expressed an opinion that FJM's artwork wasn't as polished as the first two issues and look more rushed, and he responded to me...

From the sounds of his 'retirement' announcement, Waid definitely read *some* messageboards, since he said bitterly that his leaving the Legion would no doubt be 'to the joy of Legion fans everywhere.' I didn't care for where he was going with the Legion stories, but it was a bit sobering to hear him so bitter about the experience of working on the Legion.

I think the last thing we would want is for creative sorts to avoid working on the Legion because we're such horrible dicks to them...

It might be even more of a caveat emptor if the UP doesn't allow people to make use of all the features, like unrestricted flight or jamming the public service.

I didn't mind the artwork. First reading, it seemed a bit messy, but on the second read it looked much better. He did do a good Vi. My problem was his storytelling - i think he could have done things differently - but from what I know about him -which is not that much - I think he will get better with time in his ability to tell a story.

I like M'Rissey. And I can't wait to see what Shooter will do with him. Is his name a play or words for something?

I automatically pronounce his name "Morrissey", like the alternative rocker. Not sure if that's how it should be pronounced or if it's meant to be a play on that guy's name at all. Given what we're learning about Shooter's namings in this run, he might very well have somebody specific in mind.

Hmmm...I wonder who did Marvel's bookkeeping while Shooter was there?

What about fans wanting Superboy-Prime to punch Judd Winick's head off? That too oblique (and too funny!) to violate the rule?

I read earlier here that M'Rissey was named after a prominent Legion fan who passed away.

Ah, but that was in reference to an earlier event/in-joke at the real-life meeting. We never actually campaigned for such a thing on Legion World.

So, hypothetically, no "101 people who should behead Judd Winick" thread wouldn't be tolerated here? Personally, I think it would be so comical that nobody'd likely be offended, but rules are rules...

Well, likely you're right but assuredly the return of Jason Todd and "Decisions" would have to be taken into account.

Yep, definitely should be!

<By the way, not trying to discard the more serious talk, guys, but a little levity never hurt! >

Thanks for the clarification.


I knew the Legion creators were off limits for sure. Plus I like all of them, there's only two comic guys in all of comics I really don't like and neither of them were ever Legion creators. .

Not to mention any names, but after reading that rule I'm guessing using terms like "the Time Trapper incarnate", "stupidest man to ever write comics", and my personal favorite, " couldn't outthink a 9 year old in an Adventure Comics letter column", would indeed cross the line, even if they were in reference only to writing lol.

okay! i think i really misunderstood what nightcrawler said and what people were objecting to! thanks so much to blacula and blockade boy who both wrote very nice, long, honest and notes to me explaining things, which set and others here have also explained. personally, it's very difficult for me to distinguish between what a person creates and what a person IS because... well, when I make something, it does in fact reflect who I am. I wasn't aware that the board and the members here were making that distinction; that it was ok for me to criticize the text but not exactly the person, that's a standard I'm not familiar with dealing with discourse. I guess that's just the sort of person i am! i can see why, for pragmatic reasons it would be troublesome because making it personal can degrade quickly into flamewar thing, and this also explains replies i got that seemed very offended/upset. so i'll try to keep from doing that.

i've worked in comics and games, and you know, stuff considered in the same sort of entertainment pop culture type category. and in my office and in my experience as an editor and writer and an artist, i'm ALWAYS trying to make sure I think about my audience and not to do things that fall into traps of sexism, racism, what-have-you etc. because i have a boss and they would totally call me on that sort of thing! (and.. i wouldn't do that but speaking in general!). gender relations and racism and homophobia are things i DO take into consideration when I create things and if someone working with me was creating things i found offensive/etc, i'd communicate that to them.

yes, sometimes it's unintentional! but i feel that people should be accountable for what they create and what they dictate to others, etc. sometimes, i think you guys forget that these creators are people at jobs just like you! they don't get special rules or laws just because they work in comics! if someone's being out of line... they're out of line! you can't grab someone's butt at work, right?

so my first line about him not getting a free pass was in response to some of superboy's remarks that recounted what shooter's done in the past.

people keep bringing up that i'm holding that interview against him. i had NO IDEA that interview existed until someone showed it to me on THIS BOARD. and this was AFTER i'd posted going "whoa, this issue was kind of weird, what is going on!".

i wasn't even holding his reputation in the gay community against him because i KEPT BUYING THE BOOK when he started writing it. and i was confused but still going with it because it was funny enough in some parts and i love the art. he hasn't even done anything in the legion that i would consider over the top homophobic, there are just a few things that are admittedly worrisome to me given his past.

set- yes i do exist in the real world, i've had sexist bosses (one was a lesbian female, no less!) and i do quite well by... not putting up with it! I raise hell! well usually I cry a lot and then I figure out what to do. but AFTER lots of crying, i report it and... they're fired or it's suggested that they resign because a person like that is a liability! but no, i don't implode, i handle myself quite well thank you. my problem with the situation was that it seemed that i wasn't allowed to have my opinion on the writing, but the actual problem nightcrawler was referring to was my conflation of "shooter" and "shooter's text". so as everyone was jumping down my throat about it, it sounded like "how can you insult our precious writer" and "you're not allowed to express that criticism".

ok so i hope that explains things...! i really love the legion and i want it to do well, and i'm worried that stories like these turn off potential readers! and i want it to do well, is all! but it looks like, from all the recent news and such that things will be changing in the next few months, so i think i can hang on until then at least to see what new incarnation the legion takes....and i want querlnura with a burning passion.

as a professional, i DO hold the creator personally responsible for what they create and i DO feel it reflects that person's psyche/agenda/ethics/etc just like i think being of a certain background informs a person's writer (a former doctor might write lets say a crime story in a different way from a former cop!). so please understand why when I wrote all that, the two subjects were one in the same in my mind. i will try very hard in the future not to conflate and combine the two subjects to prevent problems.

thanks for all the patient and kind words. it really changed my mind about how people are on this board @_@! i wasn't expecting that at all! i feel a lot better about the ahh... temperment or i can't find a word, but maybe temperment of the board seems like... i have a better hope for humanity! Something else else! i'll try to be better!

LONGEST POST EVER.

veryvery, I'm very, VERY ( ) glad your time away was short. I value your opinion greatly and would have been sad to see you go. There are rules to this message board, and I think they are fair. Legion World has always been partly about being an oasis from all the flaming that characterizes internet boards. These rules have always been about preserving that oasis. At times, I have to use all the restraint I can muster to keep conversations on certain topics civil, but I'm always glad I did when I'm removed from the heat of the moment.

So welcome back to you, vv--and to your obscenely long posts!

One thing I’d like you to take under consideration is that you’re addressing two distinct persons here, even if there’s overlap – but not accordance – in their opinions.

“However, if you cannot go back, look at your post and see where some of what you said would be considered a personal attack, then perhaps these boards are not for you.”

strikes me as a bit of a foregone conclusion that I have somehow shown unwillingness to go back and look at my posts; however, Blockade Boy pointing out the issue of personal attacks, your post, and me having a chance to react to both are happening at the same time for me.

You won’t find me saying anywhere “X is sexist” or something comparable. I’ve always tried to keep separate a writer and his/her work, but it seems I have transgressed that line at some places.

I’ve roughly gone over my prior posts now, and I apologise for the "I think Shooter has thought too much about the logistics of this rape scenario" and the crack about him writing sequels to the Gor novels, that was out of line. If I went into “Joe Shmoo’s a hack” –territory, then I apologise for that as well.

Have I insulted any of the posters on here, e.g. Jerry or Kid Quislet? If yes, I’m very sorry - I see now that I’ve taken a confrontational tone when answering them, but I swear it was aimed at the subject discussed and not at them at all. Apologies to you both.

Thanks, Superboy, Set et al. for engaging with me in a friendly manner – and not to worm out of an ongoing discussion, but I’d like and take the good advice upthread that sometimes, further discussion won’t advance the issue. I hope you’re okay with that.

I’d also like to apologise to the poor bystanders, for whom coming into this thread must have been something akin to trying to spend a nice day at the lake only to find the Battle of Trafalgar taking place in it.

Thank you all for your time and patience.

You did not offend me, Insomniac Girl. You essesentailly asked if I was downplaying the images in question to make myself feel better about the story. It's a valid question. I had to think about whether or not I was. I wasn't offended at all.

Besides, the best thing about message board conversations is that if one gets offended too badly, it's pretty easy to turn the darn computer off and go find something else to do fo a while.

Thank you veryvery and Insomniac Girl for your understanding.

Hopefully, everyone who needed it got a wakeup call and will try to err on the side of being respectful in the future. I myself have made these mistakes in the past.

I asked the Moderators to replace the name of a friend into a post that they feel may violate the rule. It'll help to see if the criticisms are personal or if its just about the writing or art.

I was uncomfortable with the Ayla 'at the mercy of the pirates' scene. I think a large part of the appeal of comics for me and the Legion in particular, is seeing strong women who aren't victims. (Unlike me in real life, if someone wants to make things hard for me I can't do much 'cause I don't have any super powers. Which is very unfair! lulz...anyway)

The scene with Ayla did disturb me a little. I don't know if it's sexism so much as an attempt at realism? This is the sort of troubling way that villains are wont to act in real life.

But then again who reads comics for realism? I'd rather have seen Ayla a little less helpless there.

I personally don't find the characterisation of the girls sexist. Shooter is writing all the characters to have flaws, male and female. I'm enjoying his take on them, personally.

Something else else no one has mentioned really...

Ikilles knocked TimberWolf out cold with one punch...and that was after TimberWolf got the first punch in on him. This guy was a powerful fighter. Has TimberWolf ever been knocked out with a single punch before? I don't think he has.


So it's not like Ikilles was a typical human...and Ayla's powers are not physical in nature. I am kinda surprised she couldn't use her light powers tied up...but maybe it had something to do with her hands. When she got her hands free she had no problems cleaning house.

The guy who ended up being the hero on this mission was the guy that even the girls were calling a wimp, Invisible Kid. And he was the weakest member of the team on the mission. I think that was the point Shooter was making, if any.

I really was disappointed in this issue. The dialogue seemed...amateur. All the dialogue sounded like everyone was 14 years old.

The art.....ugg too sloppy for this book. To go from FM's artwork to.....this. I hope FM does the interior work next issue.

The thing with Ayla didn't bother me as it was pirates who were doing it and well....they are pirates. They plunder, rape and kill.

This issue just did not seem like it was done with Shooter....it was totally different from all his other writer. I am guessing Shooter might have loosely plotted in and they brought in another writer to do the dialogue. I am guessing this issue was completed during Shooter's absence.

I definitely will never pick up this issue and re-read. I would actually return it if I could.....it felt like a waste of money.

Just out of curiosity guys...

How'd ya'll have felt if the interior of the comic, and Ikilles, looked something like this:




Neal Adams rules...still. And that's a brilliant cover design. Ikilles looks downright Satanic there...and I have a feeling that's the way he was intended to look in the comic.

Dude knocked TWolf out with one punch...after TWolf got the first punch in.

I don't want to bash on Greene but his art was a really poor fit for this story. Perhaps if the interior art had been more serious in tone, it wouldn't have the vibe of Shooter taking the rape scenes lightly. That art makes you take it lightly, beacause it's light hearted art.

...what am i seeing in that picture? @__@ is lyle a giant?!

hahha secretly, that cover would have driven me crazy because i secretly go crazy when something on the cover doesn't happen in the issue or if certain details are slightly different *like what they're tied to*.

ahhh, i think i'd be crying a lot more if manapul had done the art, like i think it would have been more serious and even more upsetting if that makes sense @_@! so maybe the mistake kept me from reacting more strongly.

This was a fun issue, and I think that was the point. I enjoyed Greene's art -- not every panel, but many of them. It has a very dynamic quality, like Darwyn Cooke's (not nearly as good yet, of course). But back to the point about the story. On Velmar, the Legion is fighting a bunch of space pirate goons. Shooter could have portrayed them all serious-like, some 1990s exaggerated more evil-than-evil thing. Instead, we see that they ARE very bad people, but also kinda funny. It's a nice contrast with the marauding purple thingies, who are all 1990s death-and-destruction. It's NOT funny that Ikilles is a murderer, a rapist, a pirate. But it IS funny that he thinks he's better than he is, and that he's acting the part of the pirate captain as much as anything, and that he's trying to talk his girfriend into letting him have his way with Ayla for professional reasons. I DON'T think the rape threats against Ayla were played for laughs, but Ikilles' dealings with Charisma (I'm not even trying to get the spelling right) were, and that's OK by me. Rape ISN'T funny, but you can't expect a space pirate to capture Ayla Ranzz and not have him think about ravishing her. THAT would stretch believability too far. I didn't see Ayla as weak at all. She was unconscious. As soon as she was freed, she spaced the entire pirate crew. Bad ass if you ask me. I won't defend every single portrayal of Shooter's sex and gender roles, but I thought this was OK. I do look forward someday to a (male) space pirate threatening to rape Sun Boy. Furthermore, We got more kick-ass Salu, which is always a good thing. She did as much or than anyone to save the Rimbor team. On a more cautionary note -- it's fun that Shooter has shown the unlimited potential of the flight rings. It worked in all aspects of this story, showing the Legionnaires using their will power to prevail. However, like the transporter in Star Trek, the rings have the potential to be both a too-frequent deus ex machina for future tight spots, or even worse, we will all now notice every instance when the Legionnaires DON'T use their uber-powerful rings to dispatch a threat.

That's a good question, SB. I probably would have disliked it less (or at the very least, thought is wasn't so much of a waste of my money).

Interestingly, when I went to my local CBS, they had one copy of that version and it was marked up to $9 (I think - possibly not that much, but it was definitely more than the cover price).

I'm glad I didn't buy it. I wonder if DC knows they have a stinker when they have to commission multiple covers?

While I never thought much of Invisible Kid (Lyle or Jacques) pre-Superboy's Legion (the first version of Lyle that I liked *as a character,*), I was pretty young when I was introduced to him, and he seemed really wimpy compared to most of the other Legion guys.

These days, he and Karate Kid are two of my favorites *because* they are so 'weak.'

The Legion, whether we like it or not, was created in a day and age where the genders had defined roles. Sun Boy joins the Legion and his power goes from glowing really bright (a power that's considered too limited, but only because he's a guy, it seems) to being a living star. Shadow Lass joins the Legion and she can make it dark, and that's apparently a cool enough super-power, for a girl. Colossal Boy can become larger and stronger. Violet can get smaller and weaker.

Sir Prize and Miss Terious join and he can wave his hands and turn the planet into Krytonite, and she can fall asleep and sometimes have dreams that are prophetic, but she usually gets wrong in the early issues...

The writers over the years have buffed up and made the Legion women less 'hapless,' but, all-too-often, IMO, by making them martial artists. Now Triplicate Girl is no longer three-hostages-for-the-price-of-one girl, but knows 'tri-jutsu,' which may indeed by one of the few martial arts Karate Kid can't master. Now Shadow Lass is a butt-kicker as well, and Phantom Girl has sometimes also been shown as a martial artist, and Violet has turned hardcore, first into a martial artist, and now into a two-gun toting hot-tempered showboat (even Saturn Girl is now packing heat!). But, IMO, that feels like a desperate last-ditch attempt to salvage characters who were, because they were women, were given pretty unspectacular super-powers.

I'm horribly conflicted on the whole issue.

On the one hand, I like seeing the Superboy's Legion version of Shadow Lass who could manipulate darkforce (a la the cartoon Raven), or the transformation of Light Lass back into Lightning Lass, because, IMO, all of the female Legionnaires having 'wimpy' powers compared to the males, is stuff leftover from the less progressive times in which those characters were made.

On the other hand, I want to see the characters shown as strong, competent, etc. with the powers they have, as it would feel 'forced' if, for instance, Saturn Girl gained the power to turn into diamond and turn into a heavy hitter (poke, poke) or Triplicate Girl turned out to be a mutant Carggite, able to pump out hordes of dupes, a la Jamie Madrox.

So I'm kinda stuck. Maybe *some* of the female characters (such as Shadow Lass or Light Lass could get a power-up, or revert to a more dynamic powerset, in Ayla's case), while others could just become really freaking awesome at what they do (Saturn Girl, for instance).

It seems that the 'power-up' option has been avoided, for now, but that leaves the Legion women as follows;
Saturn Girl - now packs a gun
Violet - martial artist *and* packs two guns!
Dream Girl - martial artist
Triplicate Girl - martial artist
Phantom Girl - martial artist?
Light Lass - power-up?
Projectra - possible power-up? Definite stronger personality than the original Jeckie, who was fainting and stuff all the time

That's rather a lot of Legion ladies who have learned kung-fu, compared to the boys. Or, more to the point, *boy.* And Val has a bit of an excuse for learning kung-fu. He's not compensating for a wimpy power, being a kung-fu god *is* his 'power.'

Meanwhile, boy Legionnaires, like Star Boy or Invisible Kid or Brainiac 5 or even Cosmic Boy, Ultra Boy or Lightning Lad, show no signs of having to learn martial arts. Many of them have power-sets potent enough that they don't need to 'compensate' for anything, but others, particularly Lyle and Brainy, are saddled with both non-combative powers *and* an apparent disinterest in learning how to get out of their own way in a fist-fight. (Thom and Jan also seem a bit prone to the 'hang in the air and get shot at' school of fighting, and that tends to end badly for non-bulletproof heroes...)

In a more gender-equalized team, the boys should be training as hard to *not die* as the Legion girls seem to be. Many of the boys seem to be getting a pass. Saturn Girl is so competent and her powers so versatile right now it's freaking creepy (yay Ironbutt!). Lightning Lad is getting bye on lord only knows what. Salu is *hardcore* and Gim is a gentle giant who looks like he's sleepwalking with a goofy grin through much of his day. Triplicate Girl has mastered both martial arts *and* been seen toting guns, while her 1/3rd boyfriend spends his time arguing philosophy and wandering around with his clothes off.

I certainly don't need to see the Legion of Gun-Toting Martial Artists (since this isn't an Image / Wildstorm book), but why then am I seeing the Legion of Super-Powered Guys Who Don't Try Very Hard and the not-quite-so-Super-Powered Gun-Toting Martial Artist Girls Who Love Them?

I love this team, but quite a few of the characters were built in a fairly sexist manner, and the various writers over the past decades have tried to find diverse ways out of those increasingly-anachronistic design parameters, without sacrificing or radically altering the characters.*

*With some exceptions. Mon-El was 'sacrificed' for Andromeda, for instance, and the role traditionally belonging to Superboy was played by Supergirl, more recently. And these sorts of changes seem 'kludgier' than most, and don't seem to last as long as design tweaks like 'let's make Violet hardcore' or 'let's have Dreamy able to precog while awake' or 'let's have Trips / Shady / etc. learn martial arts.'

LOL that might we why they do that..does makes sense.


I was going to go and buy this cover, because I think it is an awesome cover...but not if it's one of those over priced variants.

Not much different. Ikilles still acted like he was a wimp towards his "mate" (for lack of a better term) and that made him less scary and serious as a villian. And I also think making his "mate" a jealous harpy seemed bad characterization as well.

I've read this whole thread and the book, and have been thinking about this a lot. I'm SO glad the art wasn't grittier and more realistic! I was already disturbed enough by the pirate scene with the cartoony art. I'm SO glad Ayla's shirt from Carmine's was so tough! It made me wonder why Ikilles didn't just yank it down or something. Then I thought that maybe the parts that bare her skin are actually clear fabric. Makes sense, huh? The coloring errors in the first Ayla scene really made things more confusing. Also, I felt bad for Sonar. Not only was she being threatened sexually, but her size was being teased. Put me down as one who does not care to read this stuff in Legion books.

More on the rest of the issue lateer...

BTW...I personally have never thought of Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl as characters with weak powers...never. On the contrary...I've always thought them to be among the most powerful Legionaires.

I think Violet's power is way more effective than Colossal Boy's power.


And I've always been of the mind that Phantom Girl is actually one of the most powerful Legionaires...but about the only time I've seen a writer portray her that way was during Roy Thomas' run...

But there's no doubt her power makes her one of the most indestructible Legionaires...and if you take into account that she can also solidify parts of her body inside of someone....that makes her extremely powerful.

She actually hurt the Pre Crisis Superboy with that little trick once...


So thinking about who or what could hurt Superboy Prime in this upcoming Adventure...


Both Violet and Phantom Girl immediately come to mind as two that will have a better chance than most at disabling him. Because they can both attack him from the inside out...and that's pretty much the only vulnerability he will have.

I completely agree re: Vi. Shrinking is a woefully underestimated and underutilised power by most writers and therefore most fans too. But used creatively it can be one of the deadliest and most effective of all of them.

I love Gim but growing big and hitting stuff is not nearly as versatile and tactical as what Vi can do.

I'm not a fan of 'Vi with guns' therefore. Or any of the others. And I'm not keen on big power (or martial arts mastery) upgrades either. Not every member of this team can (or should) be a heavy-hitter.

I'm all for the girls being shown to be more than equal to the boys in a fight but I wish it came from a creative use of the powers they do have rather than grafting on any wizz! bang! new ones.

I thiunk that the scene of when Violet first entered the command ship shows this. IIRC she didn't use any guns, just her power and her fight training.

Hence the name Ikilles, as in Achilles?

And when you consider that the Ikonns were most likely named after Carl Icahn...I think a guy that acts like a bigshot but is really a wimp is a statement by Shooter on what he thinks of Icahn.


This is entire story was almost entirely allegorical to the corporate power struggles at Mavel in the 90's.


Ikonns= Carl Icahn
Peril-Men = Ron Perelman
Planet Velmar = Marvel Comics
Enslaved Velmarians caught in the middle = Creatiive people working at Marvel during this era.
Science Police and captive Legionaires= Shooter's role in all of this.
Invisible Kid = Whoi he wished would have happened.

The desire of the Perelmen to conquer and enslave and the desire of the Ikonn's to conquer the Perelmen and their slaves and rape and pillage the planet Velmar is much like what Shooter feels like Perelman and Icahn did to Marvel.


Check out issue number 43 when Velmar is first introduced...

He says something along the lines of, Velmar a creative Utopia where creatively inclined folks and artisans were more or less free to create to their hearts content for centuries until the arrival of the Peril-Men.


I mean I can understand the criticism if you guys think Shooter is too stuck in the 90's and is writing about backstory Legion fans don't really care about...


But to say this is just simplistic hacking of some primitive out of touch Silver Age writer is way off IMO...there is all sorts of stuff in what Shooter is writing here...multiple levels of stuff. Infusing Greek and Biblical mythology into the names and backstories...tying it into the corporate struggles at Marvel.


You got references to bilblical history, Greek history, modern history...

Everything from Achilles, to Jonah, to David and Goliath, to the Marvel Bankruptcy.


There is all sorts of stuff to be analyzed and all I see anyone noticing is that Shooter showed a character about to get raped....by a pirate.

This issue was just "ok" for me. I couldn't get into the story too well, because the art & colors were very distracting.

The colors seemed toned down in the first arc, and it made everything pop. Now, I feel it's alittle to bright.

Sorry, I agree with alot of what you're saying, but I can't let this one go by. If a writer can't portray characters different than themselves, than they are, at best, a limited writer and in no way deserve the adjective 'good'.

Color me unimpressed with this issue. As Homer said "Well, I guess that wraps everything up in a nice neat little package! No, really I mean that; sorry if it sounded sarcastic."
Shooter gives us several issues of drawn out "story" then magically fixes everything. It just felt lazy. Or like there wasn't much forethought going into it. The writing was sloppy and the story unbalanced. How exactly does the Legion severing its ties with the UP absolve them of the crimes they were accused of, like espionage. I get that there was some kind of legal hoo-ha that M'Rissey pulled, but I found it unrealistic that things would move that fast to get the team out of trouble.
And I really, really didn't like the art. And I'm one of Darwyn Cooke's biggest fans. I love his clean line, nostalgic style. Greene's art is simply not an example of this school of comic art. It seemed more informed by a willful ignorance of facial anatomy than a desire to evoke the feel of a bygone era. It reminded me way more of Rob Liefeld and his way of altering anatomy to make it look "cooler" than anything else.
I'm really hoping that DC can get their act together with the Legion. You'd think that with Paul Levitz running the show and Giffen in a position of relative power again, the Legion would rate higher.

It's not backstory, it's subtext, which is very different.

It's not so much that I don't care about it (though I don't), I'd just rather Shooter sort out his issues with Marvel's business woes somewhere other than the Legion. If this was a Marvel book, it might feel a bit more appropriate, but it's not and I really feel a DC comic is not the place for Shooter to air his dirty Marvel laundry.

As for the Classical and Biblical references, I found them ham-handed and tacked on. Naming one of his characters sort-of after Achilles really didn't add anything to the story, especially since the character really didn't bear any resemblance to any portrayal of Achilles I've ever seen.

Or hell, how about when she first showed up in this incarnation doing her best ALIEN impression?

Personally, I've read plenty of books by straight white male authors who can get into the heads of their characters whoever they are. I would say that if Shooter is not doing a good job of this, it's an indication of his weakness as a writer more than anything else. Granted 1,000 years in the future, ethnicity, sexuality and such would/should not be the issues they are today. There are aspects to this version of the Legion I like to a certain extent. However the dialog has been generally uninspired.The colloquialisms sophomoric. The story seems to be going nowhere fast and the recent costume redesigns are definitely no improvement over Kitson's.

As for the veiled reference to the problems at Marvel; I didn't know anything about it when I read the issue, I didn't really care much for the story when I read it. And while I suppose interjecting something like this could be somewhat clever, it comes off a bit cheap and sounds to me like sour grapes. I think Shooter may have a very legitimate gripe (I cant think of a Marvel comic I wanted to read in the 90s except maybe David's Hulk). There is a time and place for everything and I don't think the inclusion of his venting did anything to advance the overall story. I don't necessarily think that sort of thing is impossible to pull off, I am unimpressed by this attempt.

I suppose for all it's failings, I preferred Waid & Kitson's Legion to the current team. And from all the rumors flying around this board, they may not be around for long. I guess we'll see soon enough.

I think a writer can be limited and still be a good or even great writer. I don't think any writer is great at every aspect of writing.


Shooter is good at creating characters, and especially villains, and he's good at writing memorable scenes, infusing his characters with real personality quirks, and generally writing science fiction.

In terms of heroes, he's generally good at writing heroic figures and giving insight into them...and that's about as far as he goes with it. I mean to me bashing him for that is just a case of bashing him for what he isn't instead of what he is.

And even if he's not particularly good at those sorts of indepth stories...he is good at giving characters realistic traits and they seem real even if he's not real good at examining them.


He is definitely not a writer produced in the decompression era of storytelling...


I do not think he is particularly good at dialogue, and I don't think he's particularly good at indepth character analysis/development...in fact I look back on his work and it's usually when he attempts that that he winds up with egg on his face.

I don't really want to see Shooter doing those sorts of stories, nor do I think you can do them in a Legion book, and every creator tries it, and everyone hates it. In Shooter's case, the last indepth character examination I remember him doing was the Beyonder in Secret Wars II...that was awful.

I'm, not really interested in the Marvel stuff either, especially since I already know it and nothing new was revealed. And I do think it's unprofessional. I feel that's a very valid criticism.

At the same time, it's not like the focal point of the book, or that these characters are intended to be major characters, they weren't even really the focal point of a single issue.

And it is something extra he infused into these characters that were basically minor characters in the grand scheme of things.



Personally, I don't think every story has to be about getting into someone's head, nor do I think a writer has to excel at it to be a great writer. Some do, some don't...and inarguably, there are tons of writers in the industry that aren't good at it, that try and do it all the time.

I'd rather a writer realize his limitations and stay within them then fumble about clumsily trying to write types of stories that aren't his strength, and that he really has no insight into writing.

Shooter's good at creating characters and villains...not necessarily exploring them.


That indepth character analysis is a form of storytelling. It's been prevalent in the medium for a long time now. Every writer tries to do it, and only a few have the talent to actually do it, and it's a big reason for the decompressed stories in comics...and me, I can live without it for a while personally.

I don't think any creative team is going to be universally accepted by Legion Fans...nor do I think any version of the Legion is either.

I don't think that problem is solvable really..so IMO, DC should just go ahead and do the version that will sell the best...and at least that way the endless rebooting will stop. And that's the way to keep the majority of the fans happy. JMO.

See, I get that Ayla was unconcious and started kicking butt as soon as she was awake. But I don't think that makes the scene with her at the mercy of the pirates okay. It was a choice on the part of the writer to make her unconcious, she could just have easily been awake.

And the part where the pirate pulls her top down? I really hated that. I never got into the Legion to read about women being sexually assaulted while unconcious. (and pulling down someone's top like that does fall into the realm of sexual assualt)That's a level of realism I think the Legion could do without.

I agree that Shrinking Violet's power is not a weak one! With Colossal Boy's power all you can do is lift big things up and punch stuff. Boring! Vi's power is a million times more versatile. You can use it for espionage, getting into places where no one else can etc. It's a power that a writer can really have fun exploring. A power that lends itself to imaginative uses.

Ditto Light Lass. I've always felt that the Light Lass powers are much superior to the Lightning ones. With lightning all you can do is point and shoot and blow stuff up. With gravity powers you can do all sorts of neat interesting stuff. If I could choose between the two powers I'd go with the Light Lass ones every time. Control of gravity, one of the most fundamental forces of the universe, is far from weak!

If it came over weak in the past you can put it down to bad writing (and perhaps subconcious sexism).

Errm..I may be wrong but have you noticed that all the posters who were bothered by this have one thing in common, namely that they are all women?

We have to live with the threat of sexual violence in our everyday lives. Every time we go out we run the risk of it happening to us. Yes it's probably unlikely in most cases but the fact is the risk is there. It's close to home for us.

Maybe the fact that it's female posters who seem to have a problem with it and the male posters seem to think it's okay should tell you something.

And the fact that the rape threats were made to make a point about some power struggle in Marvel Comics from 20 years ago? Makes it even more offensive. Massively so.

Trivialising the very real suffering of very real women (and yes, men too in some cases) so you can stick it to someone you have an old workplace grudge about...it's more than a tad insensitive. I think it could even be what politically correct types might call 'male privilege'.

I get that there's lots of nice allusions to mythology and that's groovy. But I don't run the (admittedly small) risk of being attacked by Greek mythology when I go out on my own.

I'm really not that down on Shooter, as I said I don't have a problem with anything else he's written. But I didn't like that scene. We will probably have to agree to disagree.

I should clarify that I'm not against any portrayal of sexual assault/violence but it has to be handled very, very carefully. Using it as a metaphor for how you were hard done by by some businessman at work? That's not exactly careful.

When you use something in a story that could be triggers for people who have suffered something like it in real life? You really have to be respectful and mindful of that fact. And you have to have a really serious and necessary reason to use it. I don't think sniping at an old enemy in an oblique way really justifies it.

Sorry if I came over a bit blunt there. I'm not attacking you personally, just disagreeing with your argument. (I hope it doesn't come across too aggressive!)

I get all the allegory. It still didn't make Ikilles any more frightening or believable as a villian.

Nah, that was just gross for me. This was much cooler, IMHO. Infiltrate as small, attack, grow, punch full grown, shrink to avoid fire/punch, attack while small.

I know the feeling. I always find that less physical powers (Saturn Girl's telepathy, Phantom Girl's intangibility, Projectra's illusions), in the Legion and in other comics, are generally imbalanced, to use a gamer's term. Specifically, they can be too powerful, because it's hard to set clear limits on a power we don't have physical units for. So the Legion's never been weak on the female side.

And I always preferred Ayla as Light Lass. That's my main disappointment with the lovable reboot version; she got those powers only briefly. As Brainiac 5 pointed out in an early threeboot issue, control of (anti)gravity is powerful but easily underestimated.

It's not just the women who were bothered by it. This male poster was definitely not okay with the scene. I found it gratuitous and disturbing, too. I didn't say so previously because the point has been made rather eloquently by several other posters.

I get the point about pirates being bad guys, but this is the kind of thing that would have been implied rather than depicted explicitly in an earlier era. Plus, it was almost played for laughs in this issue, which goes so far over the line that it's hard to see from here.

Neither gender has a lock on being turned off by meaningless portrayals of sexual assault or rape. It's one thing to think the *scene* is somewhere between 'tacky and unnecessary' and 'disgusting and wrong' and to call the creator names.

As I mentioned upthread, I haven't seen a mention of sexual abuse in a comic book I've been able to stand since Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing. It's all-too-often portrayed in an exploitive or sensationalistic fashion, or, much, much worse, IMO, as some sort of turning point or 'power-up' for the victim, a la Red Sonja (ooh, I got raped, and I got super-powers!) or I Spit On Your Grave which is about sixty-four different flavors of offensive, in my eyes.

And then there's the Alien/Aliens movies, which are an extended rape metaphor, and yet somehow fail to trigger my outrage-meter. Is that hypocritical of me? Eh. I'm not losing sleep, if so. If the presentation is engaging enough, I guess I'm willing to hand out a pass.

Well like some of the guys just pointed out, they aren't all women that are offended.

As well...there was at least one woman who had a really strong opposing opinion.


Ya'll aren't Superheroes who fly to planets with pirates on them to fight them and apprehend them...Light Lass OTOH, is.

Every day she faces death...in fact she seeks those situations out.


Just like female cops who deliberately put themselves in danger of being raped to apprehend rapists.


Seeing as how, everyone was going to get raped, including TimberWolf..exactly how sensitive of a portrayal of Light Lass' ordeal would you like to see?

Do all the characters get one? Or just Light Lass?

And if just her...


How does she come as a stronger character because of that?


Isn't that exactly the type of victim portrayal that is so offensive?


Because to me it looked like the near rape didn't faze her and she quickly sent the pirates into the upper stratosphere after being freed.

Ya'll may be offended that it wasn't more dramatic...but ya'll aren't Superheroes.


I see that as actually being strong...as superheroic.

IF she's is going to undergo trauma every time she is nearly raped or killed...

Then she needs to quit the Legion of Superheroes...because she's not cut out for facing danger. IT'll happen to her every day, and if she can't handle it she is a liability to her teamates. And the noble thing for her to do would be quit the team and not put the lives of her teamates at risk.


As for the other points...


I think emotionally traumatized folks, that are still locked into their trumatic memories and still carrying those scars, should be very wary of Suphero comics...

That's just my opinion, but all Superhero Comics do is depict violence. That is their entire purpose..to depict violence. That is the very nature of the genre...conflict and violence. All kinds of violence, all kinds of conflixt...including rape and murder. It gives the heroes something to do.


And I may not be a woman...I am a man, like Shooter, and I know that Shooter wasn't intending to portray women as weak, or endorsing rape, or attempting to piss of a lot of Legion fans.


Anyway...there is no changing what offends someone, but see I think Shooter is just the opposite as people characterize him...


I think Shooter actually deserves credit for being one of the first creators to make powerful female characters...not to mention try and bring in minority characters, and tackle other issues, and I will continue to defend him from what what I consider gross 180 wrong mischaracterizations, that have little or no basis in fact and nearly all basis in misintrepretation and speculation....

Gross mischaracterizations...and I am pretty familiar with his body of work, as a writer and an EIC.

I was checking out some hunches and I think...

Louise Simonson
Ann Nocenti
Jo Duffy
Bobbi Chase..

These were the first female editors in Marvel history and among their first female writers, they were definitely the first female creators to get high profile writng assighments...all of them were hired by Jim Shooter as Editors and given those assignments when he was EIC.

And he didn't just throw the girls a politically corect table scrap either...


There was no pressure on him to do that. Just like there no pressure on him to do all the other things he did in this industry.

They got assignments like the X-Men, the Fanstastic Four, the Hulk and Spiderman...not just as Editors, but in some cases writers as well.


Shooter might be dinosaur...but he was a dinosaur that blazed a hell of a lot of trails in this industry...on virtually every social issue it is possible to blaze a trail on.

His first story introduced DC's first minority supehero. He wanted to do more.
First gay character was under his EICship.
First creators rights and royalties were under his EICship.
First Women editors and high profile writing assignments for women at Marvel were under his EICship.
And he created some powerful female Legion characters. And he characterized some of the less powerful ones as being extremely Legion worthy, in an era when the only major female Superheoes were WW, Supergirl and the Invisible Girl.

And his girls sold better than any of those did.

DC still can't match his track record in hiring women editors and creators...and that was 30 years ago, and DC had a female publisher nearly all of that time.

I can't believe the labels people stick on this guy when he is arguably the most progressive trailblazer in comics history, in every area.

re: superboy: i think you're tending to give him credit on certain shaky ground things. i want to again point out that he mandated that there were no gays in marvel. that sort of counteracts your "fist gay characters under his EIC", that character wasn't allowed to COME OUT because of him, man !

I also don't buy the "first minority" character, assuming you're referring to Ferro, because again, there's no proof of that. A lot of his progessive claims tend to happen after the fact and never happen in the actual publication so I don't buy it! maybe if they were in something like an encyclopedia or an official sort of DC related publication? like a who's who?

Ahhh, as for Louise Simonson, I distinctly recall her citing a different editor, perhaps one of the Asst editors, as hiring her on when she and her husband did a talk at Oberlin (Walter Simonson's brother is a prof at Oberlin so we were super lucky to score a really amazing talk! they were SO COOL and SO encouraging to me). so, not sure about that....

i also want to say that EVEN IF I AGREED that he was progressive in those areas, which I don't, again, i don't think that means anything considering what we're all discussing on this thread. if everyone gets mad at me for bringing up his past in describing his current work, then you can't use his past to defend his work either.

either way, i still say that just because thing X is written well, that doesn't give thing Y credit. you don't get "good by association" credit! again, I think we can all find something good in the text, even me, but a lot of people obviously have a problem with certain scenes and certain depictions.

i think a lot of people have problems taking criticism concerning certain writers or creators because they associate them with some nostalgic thing, or because they did something else that made them happy. i get upset too when someone points out something weird in something that i like that i didn't notice before. it's like reality shatters and all i can focus on is that one thing. Like I'll like a picture and someone'll say "man, that guy's hand is wrong" and then after that that's all i can see and it drives me crazy like "WHY WOULD THEY DRAW THE HAND THAT WAY, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT IF ONLY FOR THAT". and then sometimes you get mad at the person that pointed it out.

case in point, Gone with the Wind, and American classic film, right? but the movie has problems with racism that complicates discourse with the film. how do you talk about a movie like that? how should you feel about a movie like that? maybe a better and even stronger example is the film Birth of a Nation.

for some people, the racism problems in these movies disables any possible appreciation for them, because it overshadows any merit (ie: "how can this be a good film if its intentions are bad, etc"). for other people, the racism is something they can separate from it and go "the racism is bad but X, Y, and Z are good".

for me, when a book has a scene like this it's kind of like when my apple falls on the floor. I'm like "UGH i don't want it now! this apple is horrible!" but some people are like "ah, it's fine".

That character wasn't allowed to come out because the comic code authority prohibited it.

And it wasn't a mandate...it was an answer to a question.


An answer to a question that he had to give on behalf of Marvel Comics. His mistake was answering the question honestly..

He should have ducked it like every EIC before or since has.


Just for the sake of argument...let's say Marvel had no problems with gay Superheroes and it was all Shooter...

Then why didn't Shooter get fired for those comments?

Karate Kid was the first minority Superhero in DC comics history.

He was half Asian...and that was as far as he could get, and they wouldn't depict Karate Kid as being Asian, and they wouldn't let him have an Asian name..the most he could get was that his Dad was Japanese in his origin story and he was raised by another Japanese....and that he was Japanese and not Chinese(as a Karate Kid should be) was due to the fact that the Japanese were still stigmatized in America after WWII. 14 year old kid doing this stuff.


This is all happening in the 60's...not after the fact.




There were no white martial artists when Shooter created Karate Kid...Martial arts hadn't caught on yet and the character predated that craze.

IF you were a martial arts fan in 1966, you were a fan of an Asian fighting style used by Asians. No two ways about it.


The inspiration for that character was Bruce Lee's Kato...

A point hammered him when Shooter took the book over in the 70's and finally got him an Asian appearance...in his first issue back as writer.


Again...do you think DC didn't care one way or the other? If so then where were the minority superheroes prior to that?

And he tried to drug addiction before anyone else did with TimberWolf in the Legion, and the code would not allow it and so the story wound up screwed up and subject didn't get touched again until Stan Lee did it without code approval years later. But you can see the story there in the old Legion stories of what Shooter was trying too...15-16 year old kid.

Karate Kid being half asian wasn't after the fact...it was in his origin. And it may not seem like much by todays standards...but it was a first in DC Superhero history.

So why would he be lying about Ferro Lad?

He put a mask on Ferro Lad for a reason...when Todd McFarlane did it 30 years later some people thought it brilliant...Shooter thought of it as a 14 year old kid.

No editor hired her as Editor and put her as Editor on the X-Men...that was Shooter that did that, he was who hired the Editors.

He hired all of them as Editors...and he was a power tripping EIC...no one was going to be writing the X-men without his approval...even Claremont and Byrne could barely write what they wanted.


It's really not a problem if you don't like his writing...there is nothing I can do to change that, nor am I trying...

But you are off on what kind of person he is and what his views are...and he's got the track record to prove it...he's got a track record that no Legion creator can match.

Here's another one...James Owsley AKA Christopher Priest...

First African American to ever Edit a comic book in North America. Ever...in history. Any Comic Book...anywhere on this continent.

Hired by Jim Shooter as Editor of Spiderman in 1984.


Is he making that up after the fact?

Just like he put Simonson on X-Men in 1980.


Bash his writing all you want...but you are making really bad judgement on the man himself. He was way ahead of everyone else. Way ahead. Like..lapped everyone else. Including the closeminded corporate mindset...I guarantee you Marvel didn't want a gay supehero in the late 70's, and they still got one...anymore than DC wanted a minority one in the mid 60's, and they got one too.

And I've never read it confirmed but I am pretty sure Shadowlass was another way he circumvented DC's policies to get the equivalent of a minority character in the Legion...Shadow isn't blue...it is black.

I agree with Nightcrawler's assessment of this issue. It was fine -- maybe not Shooter's best issue, but not radically below the quality of his other issues. I don't see what everyone is complaining about.

I do understand people's objections to the attempted rape business, but I think it was clear that (A) the pirates were going to rape the men too, and (B) Ikilles didn't succeed in getting Ayla's shirt off. I don't think Shooter is guilty of misogyny, at least not in this case.

I'm sitting on the This Issue Was A Bit Rubbish side of the fence.
I actually thought I'd missed an issue and couldn't quite remember what had gone on in the previous issue - never a great sign of good storytelling.

Pirates (ahoy mates!), bit dull and the attempted rape was so clumsy and over done. I didn't get the sense that there was a whole lot of menace - mostly because of the overreacting screaming pirate-girlfriend I think. I also kinda got the impression that Ikilles was putting on a show for the benefit of the other pirates "Look, I'm a pirate king. I gotta act like one." ... he seems slightly hen-pecked by Cazhmir. He even says that it's just to keep up appearances. I could be wrong. I don't think that colouring helped, it was a bit too bright for a scene of that nature. I'm just not sure what the whole point of it was - if the aim was a comedy inept space pirate, that didn't work, but it didn't work as a chilling or sinister scene either.

Scenes on Rimbor: 10 pages of tired Legionnaires fight the SP. Dull.

HQ: not bad, but again, it was clumsy and slightly deus ex machina. Cool idea to use M'rissey, but how come no-one noticed him hanging around HQ doing whatever he's been doing? And while what he did was clever, surely it doesn't outclass a certain 12th Level intelligence? It all felt rather rushed and too neat, and resolved itself just in time to give entry room for the next disaster. (which, even I with my lowly 21st Century intelligence can see can be solved with Ayla and Thom.)

Of all the comics I got today (and there were a fair few) the only ones I can say that I really enjoyed were Thor (Coipel's art) and X-Factor. Everything else seemed a bit lackluster.

Chalk this one up as another issue that was a big 'meh'. The issue before also (just read them both last night).

Since I started skipping over all the 'Shooter is sexist'/'rape' posts several pages ago, I'll just add I hated seeing that in a Legion comic.

The Brainy/Garth/UP officials moments felt like they were poorly written in a rush. Like I've seen those types of scenes before, except better done. Element Lad being a pot-head was interesting.

All I can say is that Ayla is looking, acting... just overall... being less and less like the spunky Ayla I knew.

Brainy/Garth tensions still haven't matched the earlier Brainy/Rokk ones. The last scene is comforting to know that the Threeboot Legion will engage in one last epic battle before Lo3w...

What's been the most single hated Legion issue ever? (clearly this one is a clear nomination!)

Probably the "Garth-is-Proty" issue (though some of us love it).

Probably the non-Wildfire issue of the 5YL run. Or something else in the 5YL run--the Shvaughn/Sean one, or the one that revealed Lightning Lad was Proty.

Or maybe the pocket universe/death of Superboy sequence.

I'd say the last issue of END OF AN ERA... or that Teen Titans/LSH special that ended the reboot.

Milestones like Legionnaire deaths and ends of eras will surely make most hated issues. I hate issues where Dream Girl's existence is tampered with, myself. I'm sure the "attempted rape of Ayla" issue will make most hated lists.

That would be a good thread. I like most of those 5YL issues except I also hate the non-Wildfire issue myself (cheap ploy!!!).

This issue, while by far not "most hated", certainly falls under "I could care less", probably below the Imra turning into dust issue.

I think the whole TMK run is a love-or-hate thing, so there is no way of accusing any of them as "single most hated" issue. I'll place any above almost every other LSH story ever. For instance, Proty and Sean/Shvaughn were some of my favorite issues (and I know lots of people who dig them too).
However, I would say that there are some runs that are poorly considered by most of us. Like Legion on the Run - I never saw anyone praising it - and Gerry Conway's run.
For me, the entire Reboot is unreadable. But I know that DnA is quite regarded as interesting by some (not me). So, we can't say they were hated.

The worst LSH story ever? End of an Era. The worst single issue? Legion of Super-Heroes #54, where all adults were suddenly retconned into 14-year-old dumb guys.

What's the "non-Wildfire" story?

Most hated stories:

l was going to post them here, but it would be a good idea for a thread, so I think I'll start it.

I liked Proty/Garth and Sean/Shvaughn. Daring and well-written imho.

So finally, I got to read #44 again... what can I say? Unfortunately, the guest artist was not really a big thrill, or to sum it up: Why is it always the bondage issues that are drawn so poorly? First Dr. Mayavale way back when Ditko was only a shadow of himself, now this. Sanford Greene has a major problem with faces...

As for the story, I was quite satisfied how Shooters first major arc was finished. Most ideas actually made sense, though I did not get the legal subleties M'rissey was throwing out... I liked the way Saturn Girls team on Rimbor did not yield, they showed a whole lot of strength. As I already said: Many characters showed a whole lot more... ehm... character than in 30 issues of Mark Waid. Kudos to Shooter, sad thing to see him go again so soon.

I really fear that a modern writer (not Johns, he's good) in the style of Meltzer or Morrison is going to take over - whose main job is to confuse instead to entertain...

I’ve re-read this issue keeping in mind the various concerns that have been expressed here. What I come away from this issue is that it seems that Shooter was going for an over-the-top/slapstick/Pirates-of-the-Caribbeanish/comedy-type of thing that falls flat and completely misses its mark. The Pirates scenes are really written in poor taste as comedy often is unfortunately it just isn’t funny. I don’t know about Shooter’s politics but in the future I think that he should leave the humor to others. BTW, I don’t find Ambush Bug that funny either. Maybe its me.