Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Is the Legion series homophobic?

I'll take your word for it, as my comics are carefully sorted by 'stuff I got this week goes on top' and I'd probably need a couple hours to see who wrote that.

Perhaps Dawny didn't even notice, she was just turned on by the wings?

She's totally wing-sexual!

I have never liked Dawnstar, yet I found myself wanting to like her when she was in that relationship--for a couple of panels. Then they went and ruined it by having her trot back to Wildfire so he could whine at her some more. Boring!

On my list of things that I didn't much like there, was that they go through the trouble of introducing an aged 'adult Legion,' and then regress several of the characters into roles they'd outgrown (Brin & Ayla and Drake & Dawny, in particular, but also Garth-as-hothead).

Behold the shocking future of the Legion, where everything new is old again!

Everyone else has already said it, but I think the Legion is traditionally one of the MOST open-minded of mainstream comics.

I would love to see the Vi/Ayla relationship happen again, though even if that doesn't happen I think Ayla and Brin being together again is a horrible step back for BOTH characters.

The original Light Lass was one of the characters I hated most in the Legion because all she ever did was hang off Timber Wolf's arm and smother him. Then the amazing happened and she evolved into a character (quite organically!) that became one of my favourites. And now, with no explanation, she's suddenly back to being Timber Wolf's 1950's gal again. Meh.

I didn't really like the Shvaughn Erin/Sean Erin reveal, but at least it was an attempt to portray a positive transgender character, which is more than 99% of other mainstream comics have ever done. I won't be too upset if Shvaughn remains Shvaughn, but I do applaud the creators for at least trying.

Which interview was that?

I was referring to this:

http://interlac.us/legionnaires.html

Ken, I was referring to the excerpts here .

And Shooter got a couple of knuckle-raps from Amazing Heroes back in the mid 1980s for some nasty stereotyping of gays in some of his other work.

Ah. That's the same one.

Wow. I have never read these creator descriptions about our Legionnaires before. I found some of it quite disturbing and dissapointing, on both Shooter and the Bierbaums' assessments of each character. To think these are the people writing the stories for these heroes and having such a low regard for too many of them, well let me tell you it is a huge downer to read for this fan.

Damn!
I honestly don't know what more to say.

I've heard some people say much of the Silver Age DC, including the Legion, was created by 'conservative white males'. And while they were mostly white and male, the conservative part is not true!

Otto Binder, Ed Hamilton, Jerry Siegel (and for that matter John Broome and Robert Kanigher, who didn't write the Legion) were all liberal writers! Their sci-fi stories (and in Kanigher's case, his war stories) show this time and time again. Simply put, they were liberal for the 1950's and early 1960's.

Saying their outlook was biased or something is just plain wrong; it was a product of the times. Times have changed and its time to include more diversity in the Legion. Otto Binder would be proud to see it as such.

I think we at last have an opportunity for the Legion to grow where characters can be introduced with real staying power. Hopefully that happens!

(Some may compare them to the super-liberal Silver Age Marvel of Stan & Jack, but that's not totally fair either as that firm liberalism in Marvel's stories happened more towards the mid-late 60's when Hamliton & Binder were no longer at DC).

If my post above made it sound like the Legion was *created* by 'conservative white males,' that's my bad.

I meant that the Legion itself was heavily loaded with clean-cut preppy looking white faces, with only Shady, Brainy, Cham (the *aliens*) being non-white. This was a team where a woman had to cheat to become leader, and where it was 'too soon' to introduce a black Ferro Lad. (And when a black Legionnaire, Tyroc, did join, yowza! Hardly a shining beacon of enlightened inclusion...)

Future Shock, the classic Legion stories ain't.

I have no idea about the writers. I mean, I vaguely know that a bunch of the 'old school' are Italian and / or Jewish, based on their names, but I never really thought much about the ethnicity or politics of the writers.

They lived when they lived, they wrote the stories that worked for that time period. I throw no stones at them for that.

i believe it's because i

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">am gay, in the parlance of you ancient types.</span></span>


<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">surely you did not think i was going to kiss and tell in tawdry little 'spoiler' tags?
</span></span>


i'm also red-headed, left-handed, and a solo winathian. sweet creator!

I'm a gay left-handed twin. Maybe we should hook up and make some sparks.

I had never read that before, and my feelings about it are very similar to yours. Whereas I don't necessarily agree with the Bierbaums' assessments, I can respect them. But Shooter's... they just feel dirty and unrespectful in addition to plain wrong (see for example Dream Girl, Brainiac 5, just about every female in the team). I fully agree with you, Cleome, that was way more insight into Shooter's mind than I ever wanted. I think I need a shower now. Yuck.

To be fair to Shooter, I think those were from the late 1970's and he was actually embarrassed by them years later.

I'm serious. There was a fan in Klordny APA who liked to slash Lightning Lord and Nemesis Kid. I believe that is where the idea of making Mekt gay in V4 came from.

Really? I thought he repeated many of them in one of Glen Cadigan's recent compendiums.

hart druiter? in the parlance of your time: gross.


jimgallagher, on the other hand...why don't you come up to the 31st century sometime and see me?

As soon as my time bubble gets out of the shop.

[young folks around the world faint, upon being informed that people their parents' age know what "slash" means]

Good. Embarrassment is best when shared.

Wolfman's behind-the-scenes speculations on Jericho's sexuality were similarly off-putting to me.

As a writer, I totally get that those considerations need to be made, but I really don't want to hear them, in my prudishness.

Add superhero characterization to sausages and laws on the list of things I really don't want to know too much about the making of...