Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! How did the LSH get the reputation of having a larger than average % of gay fans?

I wasn't aware of the rep until I found this board. Of course, until I found this board, my Legion interests were a solitary pursuit. I didn't know anyone else who read it.

As to why more than a few Legion fans are gay, I really don't know. I started reading the Legion of Super Heroes in the Adventure era when I was a kid. Maybe the Legion made me gay. I will agree that Cosmic Boy's disco outfit was pretty gay (and pretty hot, as well).

I guess it's an early test. If you Cosmic Boy's Grell costume makes you shift while sitting you may begin to question.

I was affected by Tinya's costume...especially when Laroque came to the series. HELLO Phantom Girl! (i was twelve)

But I've heard many gay men mention Cosmic Boy's costume as being an early indicator.

Jorge

"Jan got a perm, Cos got what looked like a leather corset. And the specualtion became rampant."

Did anyone ever make a deal about it in THOR where the hero had long blonde hair, and Hercules walked around half-naked all the time?

No, not really.

But everyone knows the Greek gods are gay.

Not certain about the Norse gods, though.

I'm pretty sure Thor didn't care who he was sleeping with when he was on a viking pillage...

For no particular reason...


"Instant Recap Dept.:

HERCULES has come to Earth. He's got the big eye for Thor's CHICK. Goldilocks is BUGGED, but good! So they're fighting it out.

(There-- that's as painless as we could make it.)"

--Stan Lee / THOR #125

I just discovered this thread by accident when I did a search for something else.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it, but I think one of the reasons LSH has such a large gay following is because of the numerous FEMALE members. Maybe it's just me, (but I don't think so), but I'm gay and the Legion has always been all about the girls for me. And it seems to me that a lot of the gay guys who post here feel the same way. I'm not sure if it's because I'm "in touch with my feminine side" or because I always root for the underdogs--and the Legion lasses are mostly underdogs in terms of numbers and powers, or what it is. I'm all about powerful women and was totally into Wonder Woman when she got rebooted 20 years ago (until the art started to suck). Supergirl has also always been one of my favorite comic characters. I'm all about the X-Women too. Storm! Phoenix! Polaris! Rogue! They all rock!

Gay shmay. How ever did the LSH get the reputation for having a beligerant hard to please fan base?

Can't figure it.

some editor and/or writer was in a jam, churning out less than stellar work, and needed a fall guy. Fans were it.

We aren't belligerant...well, I am about the latest issue 50, but I'm just one person. And we aren't hard to please. Give us good stories and good art that doesn't gut the team because someone cannot think of a story featuring them the usual way, and we are happy. They concentrate on the negative rather than the positive...that we are very loud vocal supporters as well, and plunk out the moolah to prove it when the stuff is good.

I'd never heard of this (although I had noticed in the BITS of Legion Business letter columns a much higher than normal number of female fans).

Still, it doesn't surprise me. The Legion is more community-based, and less 'solo hero' based, like Captain America or whatever.

Superhero fare in general seems to be very appealing to a certain population who might identify strongly with walking around in a 'secret identity' all day long, and having a hidden life full of excitement (and possibly even fancy outfits) that none of your co-workers at the Daily Planet can ever know about.

Oranjina??!!!?? still exists?? EEEWWWWWW - never liked drank that one. yuck. so I might be one of the minority.

Star Boy in Grell/Cockrum costume was the one that attracted me the most alongside Element Lad's arrow up costume (heh) and Cosmic Boy's too. Mainly, it was Star Boy's costume, then later on when he became hirsute, my vibe went up much higher because he looks like a "Bear" to me thus setting my "gaydar" up and was hoping to see him breaking up with Dream Girl and then would find him sleeping with a guy in bed! *never happened, so much to my chagrin.*

I think the # of gay fans went up when the Meanwhile.... column revealed in a subtle way that there is a homosexuality in the Legion by quoting "ask Ayla and Vi in Legion". remember that one?

Interesting perspective, Jim.

Even though I'm not gay, I have to say that the Legion's large female population was certainly an attraction for me, and not necessarily in a sexual way.

When I was a child, most super-hero teams had one or maybe two female members: Sue in the FF, Jean or Storm (but usually not both) in X-Men, Wonder Woman or Black Canary in JLA, Wanda and Mantis in the Avengers, Valkyrie in the Defenders, Donna in the Titans. Even in the "enlightened" '70s, it was an unstated rule that women were a minority in comics and were treated mainly as eye candy, even when they were strong, independent, etc.

But the Legion had a more realistic feel of an organization or even a community since the female population was comparatively large.

It's been said that women create community. Perhaps it's this sense of community in the Legion that appeals to all of us.

That costume always struck me as being more sexualized than Rokk, Shady and Imra's much skimpier outfits...

This just occurred to me while reading this thread, but maybe the Legion only has a reputation for having more gay fans because the Legion attracts gay people who are more comfortable and open with their homosexuality. If you identify with the X-Men, maybe it's because you feel like you live in a world that "fears and hates you" meaning you'd be less likely to be out and proud. The Legion has been running around without masks or secret identities for decades - they've been letting their freak flag fly while others have been hiding behind masks and hiding in (bat)caves.

Interesting insight, Drake. Along the same lines, the Legion has always been a team where each member has value. It isn't always about the big guns. Sure we love Superboy, Mon-El, and Andromeda. But just as often, it was the Bouncing Boy, Shrinking Violet, Invisable Kid, or Ferro Lad that saved the day. There's an underlying value of self worth. Maybe the Legion was instrumental in fostering that sense in each of us as kids.

I'm not trying to "kiss up" or anything, but I wonder if the supposedly higher-than-average gay fanbase for the LSH is simply the result of a higher-than-average tendency to be highly intelligent. Please let me explain.

I read somewhere once that gay people as a group tend to have higher intelligence scores on average than the mainstream population. Now, increasingly, high intelligence quotents are deemed to typically (but admittedly not always 100% of the time) include a component known as "moral intelligence." In short, this is the ability to appreciate the import of compassion and the promotion of the public good.

So, if this is, indeed, the case, it isn't suprising that gay people would be attracted to a book that depicts a practical, compassionate, and inclusive utopia. In other words, they may literally be predisposed to approve of things, such as the LSH book, which champion compassion and justice in all of its forms.

That's not to say that many straight people aren't equally attracted to books that highlight these things, though; rather, what I'm saying is that more gay people than straight people on average may have been blessed with the ability to do so.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth on the matter.

And here I always thought it was just our impeccably good taste and fashion sense that placed us above the hetero rabble!

I'd be interested in the source of that information, Mediocre Boy.

For me the Legion was ALWAYS about belonging, about having a real home with real friends even though you were different from everyone else there, and about charting your own course as a surrogate family with little input from the prevailing mores of the adult society. I was an only child. My parents had a crappy marriage and split up when I was ten. I rarely saw my father. Just as bad, my parents were northerners relocated to Texas, and I was the only kid in my neighborhood not taught to say the "n" word at least once in every conversation. Finally, I was really smart AND fairly gregarious, the two often being in conflict with school mates and friends. So, even though I'm not gay, I totally wanted a world like the Legion's.

Smart, gregarious, & not prejudice? They must have thought you were gay.

Hear, hear!

Even though I wasn't particularly gregarious, I did have that experience. I wasn't good at sports, I preferred to read, and I was a bit sensitive, things that weren't supposed to apply to REAL MEN (all caps!). The "f" word was a all-encompassing insult for boys who didn't fit into the male stereotype.

So, I, too, perferred the Legion's world to the one I had mistakingly been born into.

Sorry, Mr. Gallagher, I only recall reading it in one of the big (Canadian) dailies sometime this past year - in the Toronto Star or the Globe & Mail, most likely. If memory serves correctly, it seemed to be the finding of what appeared to be a legitimate study.

Darn my swiss cheese memory; such a wretched failing for a policy analyst! Anyway, I'll take a stab at looking it up later tonight and get back to you with a link if I find the article.

Cheers!

Where are you in Canada? I'm going to be in Edmonton next month visiting some on-line Legion geek friends.

In the right circles, the "f" word is a compliment.

I'm honestly not sure most of my cohort knew much about homosexuality (including the homosexuals!), and I when I heard the "f" word, I always took it as a synonym for "sissy" and not a statement on my sexuality, which I guess I've either always been secure or indifferent about.