Is anyone else as sick as I am of these two? Not only do the writers think they have to always be shown together, they are not attractive characters individually. Dawnstar has always been aloof and critical, and I can't think of an instance when she has tried to be friends with any of the other Legionnaires. I remember she was particularly dismissive of the White Witch early on, and was also arrogant in her dealings with Phantom Girl. Wildfire is a product of the 1970s when brash, rebellious superheroes were the rage. Enough. I would not shed a single tear if these two were to go off together and leave room for far more interesting characters. If they have to stay, can't they at least interact with some other characters and can't we be spared the sad sack love angle. ugh.

Amen, Brother. I wish it was them who broke up instead of Shady and Mon. Send her back to her lesbian lover on Thanagar and blow him up once and for all. I'm so bored with seeing his suit explode too.

That just bugs me. He opens his suit a micro-fraction, and creates overwhelmingly ridonkulous anti-matter explosions.

He flips open his face-plate, and he blows up the HQ in an attempt to stop Omega from reaching the Miracle Machine.

And then the suit gets blown wide open, and *all of his energy is released* and a fat stack of jack happens. Even the very much non-invulnerable Saturn Queen doesn't have so much as her hair mussed by an event that should have made the destruction of Titan look like an opening act.

Wildfire is ridiculously powerful. He should be portrayed that way, or not at all, if the writer can't deal with him. Have him go spend some time on Teall, or go teach at the Academy, or explore Qward and found the Legion of Anti-Matter Heroes.

I like Drake, but not when he's around Dawnstar, moping about their sexless relationship. Wah.

Pre-boot, Wildfire was my least-favourite Legionnaire of all time. Re-reading old issues I still have to skip over most scenes to do with him. Something else else about the way he used to be written is just so annoying to me.

I loved his re-invention in the re-boot though and that affection has mostly carried over to this retro-boot version too.

I've always liked Dawnstar. Mainly for her beautiful visual.

I cannot stand these two together though. Their whole dynamic as a couple (if they ever were one? she has never seemed the slightest bit interested in him as anything more than a friend IMO which makes his endless spewings of love and affection for her, and constant following her around, all the more creepy and pathetic) is stale. S.T.A.L.E. I get absolutely nothing out of scenes I read featuring these two. I think I'm at the point now where Paul could do literally anything with these two characters and as long as it didn't involve them acting in this weird, loveless, co-dependant manner I would find it an improvement.

Total ditto with Jim about wishing these were the two who went their separate ways rather than Shady and Mon.

I'm re-reading the Baxter stuff now, and it's a realistic and well-done split that Paul tried to develop between them (though honestly who doesn't like the issues where he followed her to Starhaven). The relationship worked better when it was strained and tragic and heading for a messy end.

Johns wrecked that by having them as a stable couple. So in the intervening years they were able to patch it up and make it work some how. Sure, that's a feel good story (albeit one we didn't see), but now they are drained of almost all their dramatic potential. Saying this as someone who loves Wildfire, she needs to leave him and get them both out of this stale status quo.

There was an earlier thread about this subject. I don't mind them as friends but would still prefer some enhancement in the personalities of both characters. Dawnstar in particular deserves better than to be treated as essentially a faux-New Age burlesque dancer all the time. Give her a decent costume, upgraded powers and/or fighting skills, and SOMETHING to care about other than Wildfire. (Who is, in his traditional persona, a pain in the ass.)

I have to say I was a fan (past tense) of these two in the pre-boot era but, honestly, this new Legion version is not the same.... the dynamic has changed too much in my opinion.

I like Dawny and Wildfire seperately but as a couple ... uh, uh, I'm not buying it this time around. It just feels strained, forced, awkward, whatever you want to call it.
I think the best these two together could ever hope for now is best friends, and hey there is nothing wrong with that.

I certainly agree with the idea of Dawnstar & Drake breaking up, rather than Tasmia & Lar.
sigh
Too late for that now, I guess.

And honestly, most of Levitz's current relationships in the Legion, feel forced and unnatural.
ugh

Get Dawnstar into a decent costume, like cleome said, and get her with Brin, I say.
They'd make a great couple in every cliched way I can think of.

Drake needs to get with Celeste, two energy beings who were once people. They could make lots of little green and yellow balls of enery that could roll around.
Settle a new planet, a gaseous one, and start a new species and live for a million years.

Their is no Celeste in this incarnation.

No, but it wouldn't take much to reintroduce her (or Kent or Kono, etc.) into continuity if a creator was so inclined.

If they bring her back, she should stay a detective, though. Cham needs a drinking buddy.

Can anyone illuminate the history of Dawny/Drake? I've been reading my GDS hardcover, and the relationship felt like it was in its nascience in those stories, mostly with Drake showing an overly protective streak with her there that felt one-sided. I'm extremely unfamilar with era between Cockrum and LSH 284, so it made me wonder if Levitz originated this between them in his GDS era. But someone in the GDS thread said Drake's crush on Dawny started with her introduction. Can anyone share some specifics?

Personally, Wildfire was the first Legionnaire to become my favorite (that has evolved over time), so I really appreciated his tragic romance with Dawny. I'd agree that it's run its course, however, unless Paul can give us new insight and illuminate us about what has occurred between his runs that has enabled them to persevere. I'm always up for a good story, so if Paul can captivate me again with the pairing, I'd be willing to see more.

Well, for starters, Drake trained her when she was in the Academy, and he vouched for her to join the team. That goes a long way towards explaining their connection.

Don't get me wrong: I like their friendship, but I'd like to see them both mature as characters. The romance-that-could-never-be shouldn't be such a defining characteristic.

I'd also like to see Drake either able to make a more human-appearing energy construct (as he was shown to do briefly later in Levitz' first run) or to make some kind of real peace with the fact that he's just not human anymore. I argued in an earlier thread on this topic that it's been a fair amount of time since his transformation. He could become acclimated to what he is now, and not spend so much time obsessing about what he used to be.

^Maybe he'd "acclimate" better if Dawny didn't have that boob window constantly reminding him of what he's missing out on!

Dude, I seriously hate that thing with the passion of a million burning suns. It's one of the things that makes it so tough to get other women to check out superhero comics.

Me: But it's really a great story! There's all this action and mythos and friendship and romance and--

Her: WTF? Why are her damn boobs hanging out everywhere every ten seconds? The Hooters girls look like nuns compared to her! Bleah! How can you read this crap?

Really. We've all stood in the checkout line and seen Cosmo. We all get that you guys dig boobs. Now give the nice superhero lady something practical to wear and let's all proceed with the story, okay?

The early relationship is really kind of creepy in retrospect. Wildfire was her teacher at that dumb Academy and foisted her on the Legion when he was Legion Leader. A great Mike Grell marked her debut. She has been arrogant and dismissive of the other members since the very beginning. Given the teacher/student dynamic, it's pretty gross to think of his obsession with her and his stalkish behavior towards her. I like the interaction among the characters and am bored to tears by couples who constantly go on missions together. In my perfect world, Dawnstar would be retired and Duplicate Damsel would be a full time, regular member.

Honestly, Dawny's not a character I want to see wearing, like, a pants suit or something. As a character visualised by Grell, there's always been a sexy element to her character. I think a character with wings connotes a kind of freedom that would translate to not being uptight about what she wears. Plus, her ability to survive in the extremes of space means she doesn't need clothes for warmth.

That said, I don't care for her current costume. I much prefer her original, classic version. It showed a lot but never seemed as exploitive, probably because that's how we met her.

Dawny's original costume was a classic, I really don't think it would have taken much to update it while still keeping the gist of the original design.

Her new costume (like a lot of the new costumes) is just distasteful. The bit of cleavage she showed before was nowhere near as in-your-face as the tightly bound basketballs that are being shoved through a hole that we get now. I really think it's an ugly ugly look.

I also would like to see her powers expanded on a bit - I don't see why she shouldn't be able to do Flash-level power stunts when she's got the room for it. It would be cool to have a scene for example where she's facing a Khund vessel in outer space and before they've even had a chance to finish commanding an attack, she's disabled all their firing weapons. With her wingspan, it's easy to place restrictions on her needing the space to do stuff like that, but it makes her more than just a tracker (and let's face it, this version of the Legion's women aren't exactly a crew of combat powerhouses).

I do really like Wildfire's new outfit quite a lot, but it is annoying how whenever his casing is ruptured there's no sense of danger to it. Didn't he level the entire headquarters once using his whole power against Omega? Wildfire getting his suit busted seems to be the Legion's equivalent of Red Tornado getting torn apart (I suppose I can see where Meltzer got the idea to make them the same person in that case, lol)

I would particularly like to see Dawnstar more with other Legionnaires. I kind of get a sense that Wildfire is more developed as an individual, but it would be nice to see how Dawny interacts with the other Legionnaires - do Dawnstar and Shadow Lass have any kind of common ground over their strong cultural ties? What sort of relationship does she have with Mon-El when she's one of the few people on the team who can understand what it's like being out there alone in space? We've never really seen any of this stuff explored to the best of my knowledge and she's been around for decades now...

Anything I would have to say was probably just said by razsolo just now.

Dawnstar could be an interesting character, if we ever got to see anything other than the Dawny and Drake show. The two of them have been smothered by their non-relationship. (And, it appears that Blok and Mysa have similarly been paired off, and written out. It's like the Legion Moonlighting curse. People hook up, and promptly drop off the face of the earth...)

I'm still not all the way through the Baxter run, but the point I've gotten to, Dawny's experiences on the Exile world have driven a wedge between her and Wildfire because of her attraction to Jhodan. This is only exacerbated when he changes forms. Does it change significantly from this before the end of Levitz's run?

Set nailed it---the trend towards coupling Legion members up and then dropping them, or having them only appear together. Blok and White Witch, Duplicate Damsel and Bouncing Boy, Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad, Wildfire and Dawnstar, (previously) Mon-el and Shadow Lass. I find that tedious and consider a major flaw in Paul Levitz's writing.

So many of the guys who write comics and TV, don't know what to do with relationships.

I think, if it wasn't for the hit, 'Lois and Clark', showing that Supes COULD have a real relationship, he'd still be single in the comic world.

The problem with Dawny's old look was that they took it too far with the slit all the way down and open to the point of ridiculousness.

The exaggeration, on her and others, is what's terrible.
The artists who draw them have gotten to the point of no respect for the characters.
This last couple of issues showed lots of crotch and butt shots, some without the rest of the body or faces.
I hate the whole attitude of comics toward women.

What abot all this silly stuff about sexy costume in women?
In all the histoy the women always have wanted to be sexy for the men. Its' physical, It´s natural.
Now we are in a culture that also values the sexy thing for the men.
If they do not like the suits of this legion, since that there make a supernun legion mutants of the space who defend the morality and the good customs.
It would sell very much this title...
I Like Shady, Dawny, Jeckie (without the mask) costumes.
It's time to Saturn Girl back to her pink bikini!

Emerald Empress:

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...Now we are in a culture that also values the sexy thing for the men....

[looks at watch]

Hey, Empress. Still waiting for DC to put Mon-El in nothing but a banana hammock and some fishnets as he charges into battle. Maybe Ultra Boy can start wearing a French Maid's outfit, too.

:rolleyes:

Let me know when that happens. Your arguments might have a little more credence at that point, though I'd still prefer T&A (in both genders) kept to a minimum. If I want a sex comic, I'll go out and buy a sex comic. Really. I know how.

In the meantime, you can stop being so rude as to suggest that there's only one "natural" way for men and women to define and depict sexuality. Thanks.

[snip]

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I would particularly like to see Dawnstar more with other Legionnaires. I kind of get a sense that Wildfire is more developed as an individual, but it would be nice to see how Dawny interacts with the other Legionnaires - do Dawnstar and Shadow Lass have any kind of common ground over their strong cultural ties?

We don't really know much about Starhaven's culture, do we? Have they ever even set a story on her homeworld? Does she often see other citizens of her world in other places, or do they practice a more benign version of the isolationism that Cham's homeworld is known for?

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What sort of relationship does she have with Mon-El when she's one of the few people on the team who can understand what it's like being out there alone in space? We've never really seen any of this stuff explored to the best of my knowledge and she's been around for decades now...

I've seen Dawnstar/Mon-El in a couple of fanfics, but that's it. They would be a natural as friends, though.

[snip]

I was just looking at some 1970s scans of Black Widow on another board, and I still think just the simple dark leotard, with maybe bright-colored boots, bracelets and a snazzy belt, is one of the coolest looks out there for any female. To me, it's still a classic while all the bared midriffs and huge amounts of cleavage just look forced and cheesy.

I'm just bored with costumes that seem to fetishize female body parts as if that's the most important thing about having a female character in a book. And explanations of it being okay because this character might not need to keep warm in space or protect herself in battle don't wash-- because if that were the case, the men would all be running around with bare legs, midriffs and exposed chests, too.

^ English is clearly not Emerald Empress' first language so lets be careful about what he really meant before we go labelling him "rude".

I think Emerald Empress is for equal opportunity sexiness - which I support too. I also think there's a difference between sexiness and a sex comic.

I agree that Dawnstar has defintely been drawn a little too 'boobs hanging out'/T&A for the last few issues but I think that's more the artist's fault than the costume's. In Gary Frank's initial design the window was a lot more subtle and covering than it is has become since. I wish the artists would go back to drawing it like that because I really like the costume and would hate for her to lose it over an annoying boob-window issue.

I totally agree with you that the sexiness of costumes is totally one-sided in today's comics though, cleome. Look at what the girls are wearing (or should I say not wearing) and the guys can't even show their arms without some fans complaining.

I'm not sure where Emerald Empress is seeing the cultural advances in allowing men to be sexy in comics because I'm not seeing it. Cosmic Boy's bustier and Tyroc's... whatever-that-was feel like a looooooonnng time ago and I doubt we'll be seeing any of the guys wearing anything as fun and funky as that any time soon.

The movement for guys in comics now is for that boring, realistic, "practical" look - as evidenced by that ugly new Batman costume. All-covering and monochromatic. They've even started to get rid of the pants on the outside of the outfit! Boring!

Blacula, the "human nature" argument gets trotted out a lot to explain why there's so much female T&A in pop culture. I've heard it from fans who speak English as a first language more times than I care to count. Truthfully, I do think it's rude. It's as if the arguers are saying, "Well, this is how everyone is supposed to do it. It's the only right way to do it. What's wrong with YOU?"

Without the overemphasis on exposed cleavage, the Frank costume isn't so terrible, but it's still a little busy for my taste. I like the idea of Dawny's visual dramatics coming mostly from her wings/motion of flight. Too much ornamentation and too many lines and colors on the uniform distracts from that, at least to me.

In the Bat-verse, where few heroes have super-powers and there's a huge emphasis on preserving secret identities and skulking around at night, costumes being all-covering and monochromatic actually makes logical sense. I don't want the Legion to turn into the Bat-verse, but still... What we've got now is its own kind of absurd and annoying.

And it doesn't help when you've got fans clamoring for Lois to be bumped off, or even executives arguing that Spiderman isn't 'relatable' because of Mary-Jane and agitating for them to be broken up.

Here's a hint Didio and Quesada, your comic-reading audience isn't *eight years old.* We are past the 'girls have cooties' stage.

The worst, IMO, is when the love interest is used as cannon-fodder to advance the protagonists storyline / characterization, like with Kyle Rayners girlfriend. That's just cheap storytelling, right there.

I *would* rather see her in pants. Dreamy, too, for that matter. Form-fitting pants are sexier than trunks and exposed legs, IMO, so this isn't me being all respectful and enlightened, either.

At least they got rid of the fringe tassels. Wow, those were ugly. Dawny needs something sleek, as her wings provide enough of a unique and striking look, and a busy costume with crap hanging off of it just detracts from her own amazing visual.

It's gotten to the point of satire, with Shady, who, in six issues, has had to borrow a med-kit *twice* because she's apparently incapable of wearing sleeves (or avoiding getting shot, which, you'd think, would be priority one for non-invulnerable superheroes...).

Of the current team, Tinya's the only one who has any excuse to leave her skin unprotected, since her version of 'invulnerable' trumps even the Kryto-Daxamites (when she remembers to phase, anyway, which, since it's her only power, you'd think wouldn't be an issue).

Dawnstar does seem to have the new mutant power that her boobs always strain in the direction of the camera. Even when she's flying headfirst at the reader, her boobs are pressing up like some sort of emergency flotation devices, pulling her towards the page...

^ 'Logical sense' is the argument that I think fans of the new Batman costume are using to support it. 'Logical sense' sounds about as interesting to me in comics as reading the adverts.

I read (most of my) comics for the fun and larger-than-life-ness. The more that's getting supplanted by paying attention to what a man would probably really wear if he was actually jumping around on rooftops, the less escapist enjoyment I'm getting out of the medium and the less inclined I am to continue with it.

But I'm getting off-topic. Back to Dawnstar - I'm not really seeing the busyness in her outfit. It's the traditional all-yellow but with a little brown on the sides. And the tassles have been moved from her crotch to her gloves and boots. Still seems pretty simple to me. Especially in comparison to a lot of the other outfits on the team (most of which I also love - though I generally prefer more intricate costumes e.g. pretty much anything by George Perez, to less imaginative ones e.g. most of Kitson's Threeboot ones). Truthfully, I think Dawnstar's is one of the best updates of an already pretty classic costume I've ever seen.

And to stay on topic and include Wildfire for a moment - after initially really disliking his update, I'm now a big fan of that one too. I think some fans were criticising it at one point because Wildfire wouldn't want to expose his inhumanity so freely. "Who cares?!" says I. It looks great! And in visual medium like comics I'd MUCH rather have to look at something month in, month out that looked fab but maybe didn't make as much sense, to something that the character might have wanted but that looked ridculously stupid and ugly (like that late-Baxter 'human' look he had for a while).

[snip]

Well, you can call it "suspension of disbelief" if you prefer. Every consumer/fan has a point where their suspension won't suspend itself no more.

I agree that escapism can be a wonderful thing, but one of the things that bugs the hell out of me IRL is sexism and the visual dissymmetry that's such a big part of mainstream culture. If I tune in to a story of a Utopian future in hopes of escaping from RL issues that bother me, seeing female T&A everywhere and bogus explanations as to why its desirable and laudable instead of cliched and distracting?

Not aiding me in my attempts to escape.

See, now I want to see the Legion called to a mission on some planet that has gone totally clothing optional. The artist would have to have plumes of smoke and debris or whatever block strategic sections of fleeing civilians, since everyone on the planet would be a nudist.

It might even make a credible (if humorous) excuse for why some Legionnaires might return to earth after the mission to Planet Flappinginthewind, and rethink their costumes to be a bit less 'breezy.'

[snip]



[goes off to look at that cover of Cham fighting the dragon again]

Ahem. Where were we?

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At least they got rid of the fringe tassels. Wow, those were ugly. Dawny needs something sleek, as her wings provide enough of a unique and striking look, and a busy costume with crap hanging off of it just detracts from her own amazing visual.

That's what I was trying to say earlier, but you said it better.

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It's gotten to the point of satire, with Shady, who, in six issues, has had to borrow a med-kit *twice* because she's apparently incapable of wearing sleeves (or avoiding getting shot, which, you'd think, would be priority one for non-invulnerable superheroes...).

Yup. Somehow the least physically powerful characters are always the ones who show the most flesh. It's almost as if, at a subconscious level, the people marketing this stuff want to constantly remind women that nothing's more important to most of the world than one's body being on permanent display. (Not your mind, not your health, not your safety. Not your self-respect. Nope. Never mind all that.) Because, hey, if we don't get reminded of it every forty-five seconds, we might forget!

Honestly, I think that it stems from those old serial pulps, where the (white, male, square-jawed, clean-shaven) hero would be wearing some bulky spacesuit, and the damsel-in-distress would be wearing a bubble helmet (to protect her from the vacuum of space, donchaknow) and a *bikini.*

Woman-as-damsels, in need of rescue, and the space-bikini's just reinforce that vulnerable 'need to be saved by a big strong man' image, while the men generally wear more sensible outfits (Rokk in his Frankenfurter outfit, as the exception that proves the rule).

As long as the Legion ladies are wearing less than a Baywatch lifeguard, it's credible to show them getting hurt all the time (like Shady and Tinya, in these last few issues, who've needed that medkit a lot more than any of the guys) and needing be all rescued and stuff.

It also doesn't help that the Legion ladies were designed in the '70s, and, unlike Claremont's 'X-Babes' are hardly the heavy-hitters of the team. If the team included less Shady and Dreamy, and more Laurel and Kara*, there'd at least be a flimsy excuse for them to wander around in bellyshirts and buttfloss (not that Mon-El and Kal-El, two of the male powerhouses, aren't two of the least-skin-showing Legionnaires, so even that would be a sad rationalization...).


*Caveat, I like Shady and Dreamy about 50,000x more than Andromeda and Supergirl, so I wouldn't want that, really.

[snip]

There was an old issue of Donna Barr's The Desert Peach comic that more or less did this. Everyone went surfing in the buff, but there was (almost) always a strategically placed board/hat/ocean wave available at the moment when the stars of the book needed them most.

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...As long as the Legion ladies are wearing less than a Baywatch lifeguard, it's credible to show them getting hurt all the time (like Shady and Tinya, in these last few issues, who've needed that medkit a lot more than any of the guys) and needing be all rescued and stuff...

I wonder if anyone's thought to bring this up with Levitz on Facebook. If they ever do, I'd be curious as to what his response would be.

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If the team included less Shady and Dreamy, and more Laurel and Kara*, there'd at least be a flimsy excuse for them to wander around in bellyshirts and buttfloss (not that Mon-El and Kal-El, two of the male powerhouses, aren't two of the least-skin-showing Legionnaires, so even that would be a sad rationalization...).


*Caveat, I like Shady and Dreamy about 50,000x more than Andromeda and Supergirl, so I wouldn't want that, really. [Smile]

I think there's room for all kinds of powers. I'd love to see Shady use shadows the way that Sue Storm-Richards eventually came to use invisibility: to build constructs, weapons and the like; turning a passive power into one more suited to combat. The same with the rare occasions that we've seen Phantom turn other people and things intangible.

Oh, hell. It's canon that the first IK had to consciously become more combat-oriented before the rest of the team thought he was good enough to be voted leader. It's not as though the idea's never been used or heard of before.

I only want to say:
If the legionnaires girls were not so sexy (Jeckie, Nura, Shady, Imra, Dawny in the 70's) . I would never be a fan of the series.
My others favorite female heroes and villains are Vampirella, Lady Death and Tarot.
I like the sexy people, it's all. The X-Men have Psylocke, White Queen, Storm, too.
And by the way I'm from Spain.

Well, I never would have guessed that, EE!
(Just kidding. Your written 'accent' is very specific and clear and I love reading it.)

I'm glad that TPTB removed some of Dawny's fringe. Not just because it was distracting, and it was, or because it was so poorly placed, gads, but it was also cliched for the American Indian.
sigh

We've seen Starhaven and her parents a very few times in the past.
Bedard changed all of that though in dotREBELS with his invention of Wildstar and her Starhaven.
I don't think that Levitz is going to be able to change it either.

I think that if comics want to survive, they need to gain more respect and broaden their readership base to include women/girls.

I joined when the Legion was in the early years and the costumes weren't sexy or sexist, like they are now.
My daughter-in-law won't let my 4 grandaughters anywhere near comics.

Guys may want sexy but if mainstream comics want to stick around there has to be some shifting back to a rating that works for everyone.

Keep the Lady Deaths, but keep them in the adult storytelling genre, imo.

I like all of the costume modifications done by Gary Frank. They are character driven and creative. Lightning Lass and Lad, Saturn Girl and Shrinking Violet all look great with their upgrades. I really hated the costumes worn by the last incarnation of the Legion with those bare midriffs as they betrayed no imagination on the part of the artist. Comics are a visual medium, and I like visually exciting costumes. The gold standard for me is Cockrum. My first Legion issue was Superboy #197, so Princess Projectra is burned into my hard drive. Skin is really beside the point, for me. Another favorite costume is the Duo Damsel body suit created by Giffen, and I hated the Cosmic Boy black strapless number as it really didn't fit his character.

^ I loved Cosmic Boy's bustier but you're right in that it didn't really fit his character.

Trying to think of which guys on this team could get away with showing a little flesh -

* Tyroc obviously has/had no problem with it.
* Blok also.
* Element Lad could get away with it too I think.
* Sun Boy ditto.
* Timber Wolf as well.
* Ultra Boy maybe.

Guys that probably would/should stay covered up -

* Bouncing Boy...
* Colossal Boy tried to show off his legs in the 70s and it didn't really look good. With a different costume it could work though.
* Brainiac 5 I don't see stripping off.
* Cosmic Boy neither (despite history).
* Mon-el also seems the fully covered type.
* Polar Boy looks better in clothes.

The rest I'm not too sure on.

pffft! Tellus is naked all the time and Gates' first appearance was in the buff as well. Legion gals got nothin' on these two.

He lost that ability after Quislet returned to his home microverse. Now that quislet is back, there should be no reason that Drake can't start to "humanize" his form again. What say you to this, Mr. Levitz?

On the whole Dawnstar costume controversy, I realize that I'm probably the only one who feels this way, but I'd like to see the return of her Magic Wars era costume/look.

This is one of those issues that's hard to debate; nonetheless, I'm going to try.

Yes, some Native-Americans may feel that fringes on clothing is somewhat cliched, but I assure you that many others do not. Its a matter of different individuals' personal choices, with neither one being wrong.

Now, on the pro-fringes side of things, I know for a fact that some Native-Americans do proudly wear leather jackets that are so adorned. While this may be driven in part by sincere aesthetic appreciation for fringes, I suspect that such garments are also worn out of sense of cultural pride, continuity, and assertion, too.

So, ultimately, I suppose that I'm trying to say this: don't be too quick to dismiss what you perceive to be a cliched fashion feature for Native-Americans. Some will agree with you, but others may take pride in seeing a bit of their culture appearing in the book.

Having said this, though, I hasten to add that I'm glad that you voiced your opinion on the matter, Candlelight, and that this was not meant to chastize you or your fair opinion. Rather, I'm simply presenting an alternative view for our fellow readers' consideration.

Cheers!

Great. But some fans find this kind of thing disagreeable, especially the recent examples that are often more exaggerated and hard to avoid than they were years ago-- when so many of us first became fans of this comic or others like it. It doesn't mean that we are all conservative moral crusaders who hate sex. It just means that some of us think there's a time and place for everything.

For every fan who likes these things, there is no calculation of how many other potential fans --especially older female fans-- might be discouraged from buying and enjoying the book because of it.

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My others favorite female heroes and villains are Vampirella, Lady Death and Tarot.
I like the sexy people, it's all. The X-Men have Psylocke, White Queen, Storm, too.
And by the way I'm from Spain.

But there's no reason that every last female in comics has to look like these characters do. Other fans have different tastes and preferences. Why is that wrong?

Not "every last female in comics" is dressed provocatively. Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, and Duplicate Damsel are all dressed fairly modestly for example.

And I'm thinking "older females" have never been and never will be the target audience for most comics. You can't blame comic creators for marketing to the largest comic-buying demographic segment, which is younger males.

However, I do agree that it's ridiculous how skimpy some costumes such as Shady's are. And the boob windows need to go too.

IMHO, of course.

Their fairly modest at the moment but have been much less so at various times in the past.
Ayla's at the moment may have long sleeves and harken back to Adventure days, the the G-string panties are just wrong, imo.

And we may be aged, but a lot of females think like we do, imo, and DC (comics in general) would do well to alter things just a little to bring in more female readers.

Girls make up over 50% of the population AND they read more than boys AND are more likely to spend their money on books and related items.

What's this thread about?
Oh yes, Dawnstar and Wildfire.
How come Wildfire's suit isn't more like Wildstar's?

I'm fluffy.

In defense of Wildfire and Dawnstar:

1) I think both characters were unique at the time of their introduction and are good characters to keep around.

2) Neither one needs to be "amped up" in power. Wildfire has always been potentially great, power-wise. Dawnstar has the unique (to the Legion) power of tracking, as well as super-speed, maneuverability, and natural space travel (without suit protection or oxygen). She has plenty of power. The nice thing about the not-so-great powered Legionnaires is that they can combine into a formidable force. Vulnerability and their struggle to overcome overwhelming odds makes them more heroic and interesting, IMO.

3) As a couple, Wildfire and Dawnstar are probably the oddest currently in the Legion, which again has potential for a story. I always thought there was an untold story out there about Wildfire losing his hold on his own humanity (loss of sense of touch, smell?, possible immortality) and Dawnstar being his anchor to humankind. It was touched on briefly with his changed form under Quislet's guidance, but I feel that this could be explored much deeper.

4) I am not a big fan of the "boob window" and could easily do without it. I am not keen on Dawnstar's current costume and detest Wildstar's outfit. I am with Mediocre Boy in that I liked the Magic Wars Dawnstar outfit on her best (but wouldn't want to draw it regularly). It makes sense to me that Legionnaires would have dress reflecting their own unique cultures. Wildfire's latest looks (DnA and G. Frank's) have grown on me, maybe because he looks a little more Gort-like and less human (see #3).

Has it been established what sex these two actually are? They may both be female for all we know...

I think it would be kind of cool if the Hykraians were like some frogs and changed gender throughout their lives. Tellus could find the whole idea of boys and girls being forever separate entities a bit of a quaint notion...

In past stories, and especially around the time Tellus was first introduced, it was established the he is a "he".
The other Legionnaires refer to him as he anyway.

[snip]

Actually, I can and do blame them. The industry is losing money and has been losing money for decades now, and I'd attribute much of it to their willful ignorance and sometimes out-and-out hostility towards females of all ages. They put out products that alienate what could be a huge market share, or they completely miscalculate or misunderstand what women would like to read-- and then market the products poorly; then they blame the audience for not shelling out.

Every decade, it's the same old story.

Their attitude toward female fans (of all ages) isn't just insulting, it's also self-destructive.

More on that in another thread, though.

cleome says it so much better than I do, but that's what I meant.

LeGuin wrote about a human colony that had evolved to their new homeworld to change genders throughout their lives, so the idea has definitely been explored.

Dawnstar and Wildfire trying to have a physical relationship was explore also, when Drake had his more human look.
There were burn marks on Dawny's skin and Wildfire got upset over hurting her and left.

He's also been shown to be basically immortal, if he doesn't run into something that converts his particular energy into something else, imo.
He was in the Legion 1,000,000 story where his energy was found and put into a new suit.
He functioned the same as before and remembered the past.

Gates was shown on his homeworld, as I remember it, to be male, in that it was a hive race with a ruling queen and he didn't function as a 'worker', who are usually females.

The funny thing is: the "cut" of Ayla's costume is almost exactly like Imra's top/jacket. All Ayla needs is a pair of tights, or the "runner's shorts," like XS wears.

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And we may be aged, but a lot of females think like we do, imo, and DC (comics in general) would do well to alter things just a little to bring in more female readers.

Yeah. It should tell them something that we agree on this, even when we hardly agree on anything else, right?

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What's this thread about?
Oh yes, Dawnstar and Wildfire.
How come Wildfire's suit isn't more like Wildstar's?

I've pretty much liked all of Wildfire's costumes. I was a little sad when they didn't stick with the "energy construct body" idea. Because it had the potential to open up a lot more about his character.

We agree on more than you think, or perhaps, that I let on.

I'd put all of the girls in tights or pants/shorts.
My 4 year old grandaughter wears some version under all of her skirts and dresses and she looks fantastic.

I think Legionnaires need a 'look', so I'd remove her sleeves, too.

I don't know if you've seen Wildstar.
She's a dotREBELS character that Bedard invented, who is an amalgam of Wildfire and Dawnstar.
Her containment suit is flesh pink and has black overlays that look like something Grell invented.
It's funny and sexist, especially compared to Drake's various looks over the years.
PINK, not less.
They could have at least made the color a golden brown/red if they were going for the flesh thingy.
lol

I've always loved Wildfire and Dawnstar and the unique relationship that they have, but I agree both characters need some work.

Break them up and have Dawnstar hook up with Mon-el. I always thought they would be an ideal couple.

They both do have a distant explorer / anachronism thing going on. That might actually be a better reason to keep them apart, since they'd probably wander off and never be seen again...

Hook 'em up and have them start a new team....the Wanderers!