From ComicVine:
http://www.comicvine.com/news/exclusive-first-look-5-page-preview-of-legion-of-superheroes-4/143997/
Jacques finally gets a little attention...

More touchiness between Ayla and Violet, I see. Cool.

And I couldn't help but notice a panty shot from Ayla.

I don't care for the cover much, but I like the interior art quite a lot.

Have I mentioned lately that both she and Violet really need some tights or bike shorts or... something?



(I'm afraid to say anything to DC because they'll just retaliate by bringing back the Spears midriffs, no doubt. )

Very cool, but when do we get some man on man action?

If they bring back Gravity Kid and Power Boy and don't use them as cannon fodder...

I also like how Ayla is so supportive of Vi, and how Vi's being written as one of the Legionnaires specifically keeping an eye on planetary happenings. Fits her as a member of the Espionage Squad - and her focus on signs of revolution is a nice nod to her history.

Thoughts:

Still love the art...Daxam looks amazing in that one panel with the Legionnaires swooping in. Also, Ayla in that last panel looks great!

I like Cos of all people missing Imra (though given that we're supposed to believe these Legionnaires think the Legion Lost crew are dead, it's kind of tacky that he would say that when Tellus has only JUST 'died')....

I don't know what the difference is between this series and the last, but Paul really seems to be hitting the mark on ALL of the characters this time around! Everyone we have seen in the first three issues has been useful and well spotlighted, and here it looks like we're seeing that again with Vi and Jacques. This bodes well!

For the negatives.....I agree that Ayla needs some pants. Or a full costume redesign. Her current costume is just silly, no matter how well Portela draws it.

I can live with Vi's costume...it looks less like a costume and more like a casual outfit, but I can deal with that. Still, I would like it more if we didn't get casual panty shots along with it.

My main gripe about the art, and one that I forgot to mention last issue, is that I really miss the Dominators' plant-based technology we saw in the 5YL Legion that was visually very distinct from UP technology.

But all these negatives are really pretty minor things - more like if I HAD to pick things I didn't like, they would be it. I am really enjoying this series HEAPS more than the last try!

First time we've seen lower caste Dominators having a different form - and triangles instead of discs. In the past, they've all been the same, just the disc size changed.

I noticed that too about the lower-caste Dominators, and I was just thinking, what with the Legionnaires blowing up all of the other ships without checking to see if they were inhabited, that maybe the Dominators have a non-sentient caste that is directly controlled by the leader caste, from a command ship, making it less like 'killing a bunch of people' and more like blowing up some remote-controlled organic meat-puppets with no brains of their own.

Technically, it would still be 'killing,' but, if the guys piloting the other ships were non-sentient 'drones,' little more than remote-controlled organic tech robots, it might at least be a bit more palatable.

Another great issue. Just about everyone gets face time or a mention (except Quislet and poor Thom, oh and I guess Harmonia Li, but that's not necessarily a bad thing ), the plot moves quickly, Mon-el is awesome and Chemical Kid gets some good coaching from Jan. Brainy's close to undoing the whole DCU reboot, or at least re-creating the Time Trapper, and Shady comes skulking back to Mon-el (if he takes her back...).

That was an awesome issue. I love how Jan coaches Hadru, and then Jo and Mon literally support him while he uses his power. That's what Legionnaires do: they help each other.

dangit! With 3 Legion books a month, I can't keep up. Didn't even know it was out today.

I think Mon should stick Shady in the Phantom Zone for a few centuries and see how she deals with it.

Loved the art. Loved that E-lad coached Chemical Kid on how to use his power. Loved that Vi coached Cos on espionage/detective work.
However, what exactly happened this issue? Cham's Dominator infiltration didn't do anything. Mon-El bursts in, warns the Dom's to leave Daxam alone...The end.
Questions: Don't Brainy and the LSH remember that they've met another "Glorith" that had time manipulating abilities. Did the Black Witch inform the LSH Academy of this Glorith's origins? Wouldn't they kind of require that?
Ironic that Shady and Mon talk about HIM having not being himself, when it's Shady that has been out of character. Her whole rational for breaking up with Mon is because he was absent when lost in the Phantom ZOne and then weak and depressed since he returned. However, it was Earth Man who trapped Mon in the Zone in the first place. WHY would she turn around and fall for the villain who trapped her man to begin with? Especially when said villain never had a single panel showing his rehabilitation, especially his bigoted attitudes toward aliens. AAAAARRRGGGHHH!

I think Cham had three objectives and only met one. He wanted to get some recon on what the Dominators were really up to (failed), sabotage their propulsion system (also seemingly failed), and get a signal to the Legion before he was sucked too deep into Dominator space (which he obviously did, as they showed up in force).

Cham's pretty lucky his shapechanging abilities allowed him to get onto the ship at all. It's got sensors that will detect a bug out of place, and yet he managed to open an exterior hatch and waltz right in!

Oh, I missed #4 coming out, too.
Tomorrow.

Ayla's pantie isn't quite a 'thong', but what's a half inch of material?

I want those new designs!

It's nice that Levitz is carrying over Vi's reactions to her time in captivity. She looks harsher, too.

I still don't think that the Dominators are being killed by the Legionnaires.
I'll have to actually see the corpes, I guess.

So, both of the black guys, IK II and Tyroc, have the little braids?
Both?
It must be the 31st century bald head crazy, geez.

I agree totally with gorilla nebula about the Shady attitude and I haven't even seen the scene yet.
What's the matter with her?

Agree 100%! Remember when Shady stood by AND married a severely injured Mon at the end of V3? Now THAT is the Shady I will always remember.

I stand by my theory that the Shady we've been seeing since Levitz returned is being possessed by the Mother of Memory of the hill people of Talok VIII (whatever her real name is). What better way to get even with Mon-El for thwarting her bid for power a few years back?

I wish and hope that were the case, Hermit. I think Paul was just going for shock value with the Shady/Earthman thing and threw all logic out the window.

Maybe the Dominators aren't too bright. You'd think that when the Legion has managed to foil your interplanetary domination plots they'd have some kind of flight ring or Durlan detector built into their star ships.

I have hope to see Imra and Jeckie..soon.
At least both have been named in this number.

Agreed.

BUT . . .
since the soft Nureboot, the one thing that we know for sure is that everyone is 5 years younger.
Right?

Very happy with this issue....I think Chemical Kid taking Res-Vir down would have had more of an impact if Mon and Jo had lost to him last issue and there was a cliffhanger with an uber-powerful Daxamite turning on the less powerful Legionnaires whom he'd already beaten...as it was, it didn't really seem to have as much oomph because we had already seen Mon-El beat him without too much effort so we knew that even if Chem failed, the bad guy still wouldn't win.

It was still good to see though; I always like scenes where the more experienced Legionnaires tutor the newbies, and I like seeing the non-powerhouses take centre stage. This accomplished both of those things (plus, Element Lad is a natural mentor for Chem - I hope their relationship develops along these lines).

Not a great deal happened in this issue, but not every issue needs to be a huge event - more importantly, it didn't feel like we were just treading water as so many of the issues in the last series did. Almost everyone here had either some good action, or some good lines. I would like to see Dragonwing strut her stuff but we're about to get a storyline focused on her so I'm not too fussed about that.

...also looks like we are slowly getting Glorith's magic pinned down some more, and at the same time getting some tantalising reminders of a more familiar Glorith. At this stage I am inclined to think this Glorith is not the one who made the 5YL Legion's lives so difficult, and also that this Legion has never actually encountered that Glorith. It just seems too strange otherwise that nobody would have remarked on their identical names and time-related abilities. I am okay with this Glorith being nothing more than a callback to the old one though.

I also enjoyed the mentions of Imra and Jeckie....I could handle Jeckie being gone for a while, but I would really like to see Imra and Garth come back. I know a lot of people are over seeing the founders constantly, but I like them. And with the kids, they bring a supporting cast that the Legion is lacking currently.

Pretty much. Paul said right from the get-go that he was going to 'shake things up' by blowing up a planet and breaking up a long-established couple.

I remain a Shady fan. This mischaracterization isn't going to shake my love of the character any more than 'Wildire's suit is made from Red Tornado's robot body' affects my opinion of Wildfire, because I can put my hands over my ears and sing loudly that it never happened.

^^^I think at the end of the day that's probably gonna be the best response. Even if we do get a storyline to explain Shady was an imposter/under mind control/emotion control/being blackmailed/etc etc, it would have to be pretty awesome to avoid the standard cliches that come with this stuff. I am happy to just ignore that it ever happened as long as it never gets brought up again...up until the Earth-Man thing, Shady was one of my favourites so I would like for her to remain that way.

The only way I want Jeckie back is as Jeckie. I never want to see her in that hideous Sensor girl costume again.

I'd prefer to see Sensor, rather than a delusional Jeckie on the brink of insanity because she can't accept that her husband is dead. And frankly her old costume seems damn revolutionary in a world of stupid, insulting boob/butt/navel-baring all over the place.

If KK comes back, I'd rather it be as a new character, male or female-- possibly not even humanoid. No more ridiculous resurrections, please!

How about if Shady VOLUNTARILY gave herself over to the possession? There are all sorts of story possibilities there. What could be compelling enough to make you surrender your free will to one who in all likelihood will do things that totally and permanently screw up your life?

It could be some Talokian ritual to bring people back from near death, and she tried it to get Lar out of the Phantom Zone.

There ya go, FC!

I could see a story where Shady becomes trapped in her own memory, similar to the one where Jeckie was trapped in one of her own illusions a while back. Maybe she was yearning for a happier time in her life, before Mon got stuck back in the zone, and Lady Memory supplied it for her and took her place. She could use her memory powers to alter the Legion's memory of Shady so they wouldn't notice the differences, then tried to seduce Earthman to be her champion and conquer her planet for her.

Now that Earthman is gone (praise the Lord), maybe she'll "sink her hooks into Mon-El, just like that!"

Why does Shady have to have been mind-controlled? Why couldn't she have just made a bad decision?

Most of my thoughts on this issue have already been covered by other posters. I'm still enjoying Portela's work. It was very nice to see Jan coaching Hadru, and Hadru responding with more humility than we've seen so far.

Invisible Kid was put to good use.

The back and forth between Nura and Brainy was fun. I agree that it is odd that none of the Legionnaires has mentioned the villain Glorith in the context of their current teammate of the same name. Perhaps they don't remember her, and Brainiac 5 is stumbling upon a time manipulation explanation? Some clarity would be nice.

The Dominators were dealt with a bit too quickly.

I do hope that Shadow Lass and Mon-El get back together as a couple. I don't like the suggestion that other posters have made that Shadow Lass has somehow been manipulated. She's human. She made some choices that many don't agree with, and I'm totally okay with that. It makes her a more complex and complicated character.

Mon-El's comment 'just don't ever try that trick on me' and Chemical Kid's response were cute.

"Mistakes" and "bad decisions" don't cover what Shadow Lass did imho. "Betrayal," "sleeping with the enemy," "complete role reversal," and "utter hypocrisy" would come closer to the mark.

Any Legionnaire jumping into bed with an unrepentant bigot who imprisoned and tortured a long-time comrade, let alone lover, is a scenario that just doesn't hold water. If the basic logic and motives of any character or plot device don't hold up, the whole story falls apart under its own flawed structure.

I like complex, imperfect characters who make mistakes, but this goes way beyond that. imho.

yeah, I am with jim....if we are supposed to take seriously that this relationship did happen between Shady and Earth-Man, I want more of a reason than 'she made a bad judgement call'. That's why I would rather we just ignore that it ever happened.

Or to put it another way.......Shady's justification for dumping Mon for Earth-Man was that Earth-Man was a great warrior and his extreme manliness got her Talokkian war instinct all a'hummin', right?

So why is she even WITH an organisation like the Legion of Super-Heroes, a group whose purpose partially revolves around helping those who are too weak to help themselves? Are we meant to believe that she has only been with the Legion this long because they never suffered a substantial loss? That the second the Persuader actually managed to kill one of the Legion, she would have thrown herself at him?

Shady dumping Mon-El for Duplicate Boy would be bad judgement, but could conceivably be in character depending on the storyline.

Shady dumping Mon-El for the guy who came closer than anyone else to destroying the Legion is either terribly off characterisation, or at the very least should ring MAJOR alarm bells with the rest of the team as to how much they can trust her from here on out...

Ditto.

Earth-Man's qualifications for 'great warrior' was that he (with the help of his team) kicked the Legion's butts and had them on the run, which means that, if Shady is 'into that sort of thing,' we should have seen her express similar interests in Computo, Universo, Darkseid, the Time Trapper and / or Mordru...

Given that her pre-Mon-El crush was on Brainy, the *least* 'great warrior' one can find on the team, I don't think it's at all in-character for her to go for the 'great warriors.'

What *could* be in-character is her having an interest in the most notable men of a species. Brainy is pretty much Coluan number one, and Mon-El is similarly the universes most famous Daxamite. Earth-Man, by becoming the most prominent Terran champion, for a while, could have occupied a similar niche.

The problem is how much Geoff wrote that into a corner by having Earth-Man toss Mon-El into the Zone, toss Drura into the timestream, blind Color Kid, tear Double-Header in half, torture Sun Boy, etc. Paul may have been counting on the fact that most of this happened off-panel before attempting to use Earth-Man, in the hopes that it wouldn't 'poison the well,' (or, as with some of the other stuff from recent years, like Wildfire-is-Red-Tornado, flat out intended for it to be 'chronicler's error' and 'never happened'), but he didn't do enough to 'un-poison that well' or address (or correct / negate) those circumstances and make the relationship believable.

A sentence dropped here or there indicating that the majority of Earth-Man's reputed off-panel activities were exagerrations, that Double-Header had only been hurt in the fight (or had finally completed his much-delayed mitosis and split into two people, leading to some onlookers thinking that Earth-Man had 'torn him in half'), or that Color Kid had recovered from the temporary damage he'd taken in a fight with the JLE, etc. could have gone a long way to making Earth-Man a bit less un-salvageable a character.

Instead we have scene after scene where Earth Man uses Colossal Boy's powers or Sun Boy's powers or Element Lad's powers, and upstages (or even *lectures*) those heroes in various ways, making him less and less popular to anyone who actually likes those Legionnaires.

I'll admit that Paul had an uphill struggle to make Earth-Man's story compelling, but it's like he didn't even try.

And so, despite feeling that this story had great potential, when the character died, all I felt was relief that this tiresome episode was over, and cheated that it never amounted to anything.

At this point, the only sane reaction to me, instead of trying to retroactively make sense of it all (and make sense of Shady's actions during this time), is to spit on the ground and say, 'We shall never speak of this again.'

Given that the Lightning Saga took place with the pre-Flashpoint Justice League, I think it is fair to say that for THIS Legion, it never happened.


The original Glorith was a minor character that only a few Legionnaires met when she was an adult and they were kids. Why would anyone make any connection between the two Gloriths. Glorith could be as common in the 31st century as a name like Mary today.

[snip]

Damn it. Where's that "LIKE" button?

I don't know what makes me cringe more: the story itself or the way it's given some fans license to say some really nasty, anti-woman crap in various forums. (And when people do that, I wish they'd try and bear in mind that Shady's a fictional character. She did this stuff because the writer and the editors wrote it that way, and couldn't be arsed to make it even remotely plausible. )

LMAO! Thanks, Set!

That's my thought, too.

I can't be mad at Shady for this decision, because she isn't real. Her choices are 100% on the shoulders of the writer.

In the words of Jessica Rabbit, 'I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.'

I must say that I enjoyed this issue more than than any since the TMK era. Although Paul did get Shady & Mon-el's dialog mixed up on the last page.

I was going to post a lengthy reply here, but then Jim G. said everything I wanted to say. Thanks, Jim, for saving me from being late to work this morning

You're quite welcome!

I agree with much of what has been said about that the Earth Man and Shadow Lass affair. I'm just saying that suddenly revealing that Tasmia was being mind controlled would make a bad situation , or bad story, worse.

In the real world, prisons and death row are full of criminals - even murderers, who have women that love them. What makes women love bad men? Is Tasmia any worse than her teammates who allowed Niedrigh to become part of the team for the political reasons? Should they have disbanded the team or left Earth?

Given the context of a xenophobic Earth were Niedrigh's actions universally viewed as criminal? His team was called the Justice League, not the Injustice Gang. Do even the worst among us, have some redeeming qualities? Did Shadow Lass see them where others didn't?

A woman who had a teenage crush on Brainiac 5, can't harbor an attraction to rugged warriors? Really, are women such shallow and one dimensional beings?

Sleeping with the enemy? Yes, that's exactly the story that Levitz wanted to tell. What if the Joker or Lex Luthor were somehow forced to become members of the Justice League in current times? How would members react? Sure, there are lots of problems with the concept and the way the story was told. It is the story Levitz wanted to tell - an idea that he wanted to explore. He spent 16 issues doing it. It ended up being a story of redemption - which went over like a lead balloon. God, how we hate redemption.

In all honesty, it's a story that I didn't enjoy all that much. There were lots of problems with the execution and there are other stories I would rather have read. Given all that, to suddenly make it all a "mind control" thing would feel like a cop out to me. As readers, we now have to deal with Tasmia as a character who is very different than the one we knew before. Pretending it didn't happen would be the easy out.

You make some good points, Jerry.

[snip]


Thank you so much! I wanted SO badly to say this, but I was so ticked off that I honestly couldn't find the words. I am so damn tired of judgmental attitudes against female characters, especially since Shady couldn't have "betrayed" Mon-El because they weren't together anymore!

Quote

Given all that, to suddenly make it all a "mind control" thing would feel like a cop out to me. As readers, we now have to deal with Tasmia as a character who is very different than the one we knew before. Pretending it didn't happen would be the easy out.

Agreed. Shady as OOC "traitor" or Shady as brainwashed victim? Both choices are what's called in Yiddish fairytales a "goat's dessert." They're both effing awful. Let's just pleeeeeeeeeease move on already!

Gah.

Well, I don't know about FC's orjim's motivies for what they suggested, but my comment was tongue-in-cheek.

And if anyone believes in redemption, it's me, but I didn't really see that in Kirt.
To me, everything was about his own glory and agrandizement.

That includes the torture he put Lar through, his relationship with Shady and his final death.
He didn't die for anyone else but himself and the seeming proof that he was superior.
He was a true narcissist, as well as a sociopath, imo.
I think that he died unrepentant.

Tasmia's self-importanace wasn't very pretty either.

I would have felt the same if a male character was used/abused the same way, though.
I protested the Progeny/Jan in a similar way.

But, like I said earlier, with the deaging, I can accept Tasmia's change to selfishness much easier, so I'm moving on.

If I were Cos, I would have taken the opportunity to move the Legion to another planet, leave Earth to its own devices and then count the seconds till the xenophobes realise just how much Earth needs the Legion and begged them to come back. That would have made an infinitely more interesting story than the Legion caving and letting Earth-Man join without anything more than token resistance, and I really don't think that Cos as leader at the time came out looking any better than Shady did.

I also have major issues with Cos shipping Lydda off to the Academy once they'd broken up and then refusing to allow any of her students to apply for membership. Cosmic Boy really didn't come off looking very heroic last series at all unfortunately...

But to address the question about women who love bad men....this isn't some generic guy who did some bad things but showed a good side underneath it somewhere - this is a guy who tortured and killed Tasmia's friends and long-term associates. She can be attracted to someone like that without there being any kind of lead-up to it, but she can't also be a hero. The two are mutually incompatible. Her gender doesn't enter into it, I would have exactly the same reaction if Sun Boy hooked up with the Emerald Empress.

I agree on all points, Raz. The Legionnaires are supposed to be heroes, and what Shady did was anything but heroic, regardless of her gender.

Somehow, through all this Shady/Earth Man stuff, it is my impression that the emphasis of the writing was to shake up the character of Mon-El. Knowing that in the New 52 that both Superboy and Supergirl would not be a part of the Legion (at least for a while), I suspect there was a conscious effort to re-establish Mon-El as a main character in the title. Mr. Levitz used the Green Lantern/Sodam Yat thread and Earth-Man thread to bring up some character-advancing adversity for Mon-El and at the same time tie up a few loose ends. The readers voting for Mon-El as Legion Leader was an additional, if unexpected, opportunity. Unfortunately, Shady came out as a big casualty of this, character-wise. Earth-Man did as well, but I don't think many people cared about that.

The original effort to break-up a "given" couple such as Mon-El and Shady was certainly flawed, but opened up a ton of story possibilities for these characters. I expect there will be a gradual re-get-together for the two that we the readers will witness in the coming months.

Which makes it have shades of 'we have to do something to Lois / Mary-Jane / Alexandra DeWitt to make Superman / Spider-Man / Kyle Rayner more interesting / relatable / etc.'

I'm not a huge fan of spouses or partners or children being put through the wringer to advance someone else's story...

Unless it's Terry Long being driven off a cliff to advance Wonder Girls story. In that case, it's all good!

And yet, from Paul's reaction to Mon-El being voted in as leader, it seems more likely that Mon-El was going to be written out, to go off and be a Green Lantern, and allow for more focus on other characters. (Which might have had it's own pros and cons, or even led to a 31st century Green Lantern spin-off, focussing on Mon-El establishing a new Corps!)

Paul's reaction definitely wasn't 'oh, what a great opportunity to advance my plans for Mon-El!' It was more 'well, gotta throw out all these ideas...'

To maintain any kind of credibility, a character has to have believable reasons for doing what he or she does. Those reasons have to be consistent with that character's personality. Tasmia's actions over the past year are not consistent with the character as she has been established over the decades. If it were a real person we would have to assume their was some sort of outside influence at work such as a brain aneurism or something of that nature to effect such a dramatic personality change. To simply shrug it off and say she made a bad decision is to write off any credibility the character may have had.

Don't insult me by asking me to believe that Tasmia Mallor's self-esteem is so low that she would sleep with someone who not only tortured and/or maimed friends that she had known and worked alongside for years, but also had made it clear that he considered her a member of an inferior species.

It. Just. Doesn't. Wash.

For that matter, Neidrich sleeping with a member of what he considers an inferior race smacks of the white slave master of the 1800s taking one of his female slaves to bed (which happened a lot, unfortunately). Can anyone say that practice was anything but degrading for the women involved?

[snip]

It's likely that Sun Boy/Empress would have played out as "seduction" or something where the dudes writing the story could preserve the idea that he wasn't really responsible for the "betrayal." Ergo, he wouldn't have to devise any explanation for his behavior apart from, perhaps, OMG! The Eye made me do it!!

Not to mention that Sun Boy isn't a character likely to be largely defined by his relationships with women. Yeah, we know he's a womanizer but the women themselves are not what he lives for, or through. Unlike most female characters, who we all mostly see defined by/through their relationships with men.

Also, I don't think people would be calling Dirk a "skank," or similar, as I've seen all too often happening to Shady.

It's great that you're an egalitarian, but I'm sorry to say that in my experience most writers, artists, and fans aren't. And it really sticks in my craw, frankly. If editors and creators don't care how double standards tend to play out in these episodes, they bloody well should learn to care.

Sadly, I agree with all of this.

This kind of calls to mind over at Marvel where Cyclops left his first wife and son the instant his dead girlfriend turned up alive again, and rather than have him actually face up to the slimy thing that he'd done they had Madeline turn psychotic and evil so it kind of retroactively supported that he'd done the right thing all along....

Then after finally marrying Jean, he up and dumps her for Emma Frost of all people for no particular reason. Emma at least has spent the past bunch of years slowly rehabilitating herself from her previous position of villainy, but it doesn't change the fact that she was at one point one of the X-Men's worst enemies, and she was partially responsible for Phoenix becoming Dark Phoenix. There are definitely at least superficial similarities to the Shady/Mon-El/Earth-Man thing...I wonder whether Cyclops would still be seen as one of the greatest mutant heroes on Marvel Earth if he'd done all this as a woman?

I think it's equally scuzzy behaviour on both Scott and Shady's parts, but I think my main problem with Shady's behaviour is that this is an aberration for her. I don't mind seeing Scott as being a womanising douchebag because he's been that way so long that it's part of his character now. It doesn't make him a great hero in my mind, but it is an interesting flaw for a character to have.

I don't like seeing Shadow Lass be that person because she was the one person who stood by Mon-El up to and after his death. Even all through LO3W she had stood by him through everything, and never showed that any of it was reluctant or resentful...then the last series starts and suddenly out of nowhere they have broken up off-panel and within issues she is with the guy who tried to kill herself and her teammates. It doesn't ring true to her character as previously established, and as the Hermit mentioned, it draws out a whole lot of uncomfortable and really racist undertones that I don't think Paul thought through beyond the initial shock factor at all.

I can totally see where you're coming from though cleome, and I agree....it's sad that the reason a lot of people won't like this development is because 'it makes Shady look like a ho' and not because it was legitimately just a bad development for all characters involved.

^ word. The reason I personally find this upsetting is because of the depths of Shady's devotion to Mon-El in the Preboot. Heck, she was really the stronger of the two, being Mon's anchor when he went nuts after his anti-lead serum was failing.

I totally agree with the points brought up about Shady being female, and how her sex should not factor into how we view her. To be honest, I think most people here would react the same way if, say, Cosmic Boy were in a similar situation.

Razsolo helps prove my point here I also disapproved of Cos shipping Lydda off to the Academy because they broke up!

Anyway, I think the Legion women are among the female characters in superhero comics who are least defined by their men. Saturn Girl, Dream Girl, Jeckie as Sensor Girl all come to mind.

That's actually a pleasantly common feature of Legion relationships.

Garth has fallen apart under the pressure of leadership (and parenthood, possibly), while Imra has remained the strong one.

Brin went through his addiction, while Ayla stood strong for him, and when they split up, she was the one who made that call.

Lydda and Rokk's breakup very much seems to have to do with *his* issues (although Paul seems to be flirting with Rokk's issues stemming from a long ago mindwipe, which will just destroy the point I'm making...), and not hers.

At this very moment, Nura is playing nursemaid to a wounded Thom, and she's always been the more dynamic and take-charge of the two. (And both the smarter of the two, and the one most likely to take charge of a situation.)

While I've never been a huge fan of how darn fast a female Legionnaire seems to get paired off with a male Legionnaire, while some male Legionnaires (Cham, Dirk, Gim) can go decades without a date, let alone being paired off, I do appreciate that so many Legion scribes have seen fit to not relegate the Legion ladies to 'so-and-so's girlfriend status,' or, as an X-Men writer once said of the original plans for Jean Grey (before Shooter mandated that she had to die for killing eleventy billion brocoli people), 'is depowered and becomes Scott's wife, about as important to the story as the left rear tire of the Blackbird.'

It's refreshing that most the Legion ladies are not defined by their relationships, or, worse, sidelined by them. (Well, Lu was sidelined, but only because it was a two-fer, getting rid of Chuck and Lu at the same time, in an attempted de-sillification of the team, I suppose.)

Dawnstar's the big exception. Finding a storyline about her that isn't all cluttered up with rehashed stuff about her big star-crossed forbidden love with Wildfire is like searching for a needle in a haystack. The both of them I think would be hugely improved by a trial separation...

If Paul had decided to break them up instead, I would have been all 'YES!'

And that leaves me wondering what would happen if Earth-Man touched Wildfire's containment suit and attempted to absorb his powers...

Probably an Earth (Man) shattering kaboom.

Contrary to the implication that out-of-character affairs are only explained away when the main character is male, we have seen a situation where it was explained away even though the main character is female: Dream Girl and Atmos.

Of course, this leads to a catch-22. Right now we're saying it's anti-female to have a male protagonist mind-controlled or seduced by the woman (because it means the woman is to blame, not the man), but you could just as well say it's anti-female to have the female protagonist mind-controlled or seduced by the man (using some sort of reasoning like "it shows the woman as weak and vulnerable to influence"). It doesn't matter which way it goes, or what the writers do.

I read #4 at the weekend and all that has stuck with me is how little some of the girls wear. Alya + Vi need leggings while Nura + Tasmia need to get some clothes on. Seriously, Tasmia wears some string + a couple of handkerchiefs. Not a good look.

While it is true that believable reasons for Tasmia's behavior have not been established, it does not mean that it is impossible.

If I were hired to write the Legion out of this mess, I would observe that (1) Tasmia is not human, and (2) Talokan society is not a human society.

Tasmia's family are the hereditary "planetary champions" of Talok VIII. Their "romantic" inclinations are not based on human "love" or "loyalty". Rather, they are based on an evaluation of what a mate might be able to contribute to the Mallor gene-pool. This response is not a cold, intellectual calculation, but an emotional- although alien- response.

When Daxamite and Talokan DNA proved incompatible- as proven by Tasmia's inability to conceive with Lar- she abandoned him. When "Mon-El" was defeated by "Earth-Man", the victor became irrestistably attractive.

Kirt and Tasmia were mutually exploiting one another- he was taking the prerogatives he felt he deserved as the master race, she was trying to maintain her family's own racial mastery.

This could explain the seemingly unlikely pairing of Shadow Lad and Lady Memory, as well.

Not that I liked the "Earth-Man" arc. I would have preferred it end with Double-Header's four parents kidnapping Kirt, stripping him of his powers, and locking him up in solitary confinement on Janus for life.

I've thought for quite a while now that Levitz's method of storymaking is to use snippets of ideas, or something he finds in research, or even a particular line of dialogue he likes, and then work to build stories around them.

Just today I read Legion: Secret Origins #3. In the very last panel, when we should get the cliff-hanger or the surprise revelation, all we get is Brainy explaining how he used an ancient battle technique. It felt like all of Brainy's storyline in this issue was just a build-up to that, so Levitz could include this quaint piece of information he found. The story's action itself was rather mediocre, and I found myself thinking, "So what? Who cares?"

These "ideas" become the foundation of his stories, and the foundational story of the Legion and its members gets lost. Large unexplained or enexplored gaps in the big story keep appearing. There's Harmonia Li...still an uninteresting mystery. Shady's relationships with both Mon-El and Earth-Man. Cos & Lydda. Dream Girl's sudden and barely-told trip to rescue Star Boy from the 21st century which, coincidentally, was "just in time" for Harmonia Li to need him. No one even mentioning the Lost Legionnaires.

I'd much rather know about these things than what Paul is telling us.

It seemed to me that that was just a coda to the story and it wasn't supposed to have a cliffhanger at all.

Paul's recent use of Dyogene ( Diogenes, and his lamp, searching for an honest man ) and Panoptes ( Argus Panoptes, hundred-eyed giant and watchman ) tends to support that theory.

There may have been some Buddhist name-droppage during the recent Titan-'splosion and Saturn Queen-rampagening, but it went over my head, if so.

I don't believe that Tasmia has LOW self esteem, although I also don't think that the retroboot/Nuboot Tasmia has or had, anywhere near the inflated egos of the reboot Umbra or the 3boot version.
THIS Tasmia hasn't been trained as a warrior from birth, nor did she initially know about the shadow Cave.

She was raised as an orphan by an old uncle and she & Grev were 'called' or just stumbled upon the cave as young teenagers.
She might be the champion of Talok but she doesn't have the deep indoctrination or ego that the others displayed.

And very unlike any champions we've seen in the past and in other versions, she's had Grev with her since the beginning, two Cave veted champions.

In the original dotLEGION, we found out that Talokians can't be cloned, so maybe there is a biological issue with them producing mixed DNA offspring, as well.
And we know that Lar in the retroboot, fathered a half human child in the 21st century.

I've often thought that her Mallor reproductive imparative was a Shadow Cave inducement, rather than biologically triggered, especially in the original version.

Perhaps, like The Sanctuary heroine, Magnus, the Cave holds fertilized eggs within the body until Tasmia, or the Shadows, decide it's appropriate to gestate.
The Shadows may want a fairly wide choice at the appropriate time, too.

Interesting thoughts, guys.
Thanks.

I don't think the first two sentences are even true. In real life, people often do things that aren't consistent with their history of past behavior.

Honestly, I really can't defend Shady sleeping with Kirt, but I think it's also somewhat insulting to claim that she's not responsible for her own decisions.

I think what's insulting is the assumption that if a character does something unexpected, then it must be because of mind control. There ought to be a basic presumption that people are responsible for their own choices, unless there's evidence to the contrary. It's offensive to assume that people are not able to make their own decisions, and it smacks of sexism because it's typically female characters who are subjected to this sort of assumption.

As another equally annoying example which occurred in-story, in Avengers Academy #21, I think, Jocasta was vehemently arguing with some of the male characters, and one of them suggested that she might be under mind control.

On the one hand, I agree. I do stuff that's wildly out-of-character (for the person I like to think that I am) all the time.

And yet, the difference between the real world and fiction is that fiction is supposed to make sense.

Shady isn't a real person, who might get a wild hare up her thong to study Kaballah or backpack across Europe or cut off all of her hair and donate it to kids undergoing chemotherapy.

She's a fictional character, and her choices reflect on the choices made by the writer for her, so, if they 'make her look bad,' it's not that imaginary-Shady did something bad, it's that the writer *deliberately wrote her that way.*

I don't blame Imra for sleeping with and / or mindwiping Rokk (this boot) or Jo (Shooterboot) because it wasn't Imra who made those choices. It was Paul Levitz and Jim Shooter, respectively, and if I'm going to be disappointed with Imra's characterization because of those events, I'm going to be disappointed with the writer, who should have a compelling narrative reason to 'go there,' and, thus far, apparently, has not.

I agree with you, Set.
The 'compelling narrative reason to 'go there'', was pretty much bungled.

And it wouldn't have taken much to keep the development from coming out of the blue, either.
The break-up part, anyway.

Tasmia considering a thug, torturer and murderer to be a great warrior, would have taken a whole lot of work, imo.

There are always anticeedents for behavior, I've been taught.
We didn't see any, so we keep trying to come up with a plausible explanation.

I don't think that is insulting, either to the character or to females in general.
On our part, anyway.

The writer is another thing.

I said it was a catch-22, but it was only theoretical until you came and actually did it--after I warned people about it....

The original complaint here was 1) the claim that if Sun Boy was the one having the affair the writers would blame the woman in some way that makes him not really responsible, and 2) an actual example with Scott Summers, where the woman was indeed blamed in order to make him not really responsible.

The Dream Girl/Atmos example is the opposite sex from that. But you're still calling it sexist.

That's a real catch-22: if it's not the man's fault and the woman is responsible, it's sexist against women. If it's not the woman's fault and the man is responsible, it's still sexist against women. No matter which character is on which side, you can always claim it's sexist against women!

You can't have it both ways.

I don't necessarily agree, but I feel that this discussion is becoming excessively nitpicky and unproductive, so I'll concede that you have a point.