Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Diversity on Superteams...How does the Legion stack up?

Over on the Supergirl & the Legion of Super Heroes forum there is an interesting thread discussing Race and the Legion

Maybe it's because I don't visit comicbook boards other than LW with an occasional sidetrip via links posted here but I've always wondered why this has always been such a big issue for the Legion yet never seemed to be such a big deal when it comes to other super teams. Or maybe it has been and I'm completely clueless

I think in comparison to other superteams, the Legion has done fairly well when it comes to diversity. However, I admit that I'm much more familiar with the entire history/membership of the LSH than any of these others.

For example, who are/were the non-white members of the JSA? I can think of the current Mr. Terrific (who replaced the original upon his death in one of the Crises) and Jakkeem (ditto). Have there been any others?

The JLA went on in various incarnations for many years before adding a non-white (other than Martian Manhunter, who was there at the start...sort of the JLA's Cham ). It currently has Vixen and Black Lighnting. At one time there was also Vibe and Connor Hawke (who is supposed to be half-Asian I believe though he's not always portrayed that way. Anyone else I can't think of?

The Avengers had only Black Panther for many years until they brought in Mantis (who I believe was originally Vietnamese) I stopped reading this back in ancient times so those are the only ones I can think of.

X-Men are always touted as the best example of a diverse superteam (and with 57 billion members it really should be so) but...ummm I can't come up with too many non-whites there either. Dani, Nightcrawler (not sure if I would count him any more than one should count Beast in his blue fur) and uhhh... (I stopped reading X titles a loooong time ago so someone else will have to fill in the blanks)

Last but not least (of the major superteams) are the Titans. By far, I would say that the Titans have been the most diverse/inclusive over the years. I remember Mal, Bumblebee, Beast Boy (although he started out as a caucasian), Cyborg, Miss Martian, Kori, Pantha, Mirage, Minion, Fringe, Joto, & I guess we should count Hero Cruz & Bushido from Titans LA as well as Mas y Menos, Osiris, & Young Frankenstein from the year of "52". Did I miss anyone?

As for the Legion...off the top of my head, I can think of Chameleon Boy, Brainiac 5, Karate Kid (Val was always supposed to be half Japanese though he was rarely drawn that way), Shadow Lass, Dawnstar, Tyroc, Invisible Kid 2, Computo, Tellus, Quislet, Blok, XS, Gates, Catspaw, Kid Quantum 1, Kid Quantum 2, Gear, & Dragonmage. There has also been lots of discussion that Ferro Lad was supposed to have been black although he was never drawn as such. And lets not forget the WaK Starboy. (Did I skip anyone?)

All in all, I think the Legion has done pretty well, considering that for many years TPTB refused to have any non white heroes in any comicbook.

I should also point out that, unlike the Legion, all these other Superteams typically had ONE female member for much of it's early history, whereas the Legion has always had a "legion" of ladies. Heck, the first two new members the Legion ever had were females and that brought the membership to 50/50!

So, how do you think the Legion has done?

Actually, it gave females a majority of 3:2. 5:2 if you count Lu thrice.

Color me embarrassed!

the Legion used to be more diverse before than now, even than the Titans - the Legion once boasted the largest # of the black female members - Computo, XS, Catspaw....right now it's ZERO. X_Men - only ONE - Storm - as far as I know since I stopped collecting XMen 8 years ago. Titans - one member - Bumblebee. JLA - again one member - Vixen. Same thing with Asian women too. JLA - Dr. Light II. Titans - hmmm none?. Legion - none. X-Men has two - Jubilee and Psylocke (as far as I know....) So as you can see, I would love to see more of those Asian/Black female heroes - I would love to see Dr. Light II, Gloss, Jet to join the Justice League, Tiffany Cross (remember her?), Bumblebee (in cartoon, she KICKS a MAJOR butt!) and Empress to join the Titans alongside Ravager (if she is not being killed off), and I have always felt that Night Girl should be an Asian (due to her name - Lydda Ming Jath) and be a member of Legion.

Yes I do have a love/attraction toward those female fatales. Sorry - as you can see, the answer is yes I do collect FemForce. *ahhh sigh* they do kick the butt.

In the case of the JSA, I remember a point being made about this in America VS the Justice Society, and the answer givent there is that there just weren't any black (and were very few women) heroes in the 1940s. It actually kind of makes sense in a way, considering the standard occupation for a super-hero in those days was that of a "rich playboy", and for many of them their being a super-hero was tied to their economic status ("I own a pharmaceutical company, and can therefore invent a pill to give myself super-powers!). And given that most of the JSAers since then were descendants of that population, it also makes sense for them to be mostly white.

It seems to me a lot more problematic for the JLA to explain why almost all of their founding members were white, and it seems to me it's only going to get more problematic as the founding of the JLA keeps being pushed later and later in time.

Catspaw was black? I thought she was just ... catlike.

I don't see that as being problematic at all. They just happend to be white (plus J'onn) and mostly from the U.S. (three and a half of them weren't even human) Of all the things to strain credibility in a super-hero book, that's one of the least for me.

Without looking it up, I think the X-Men have been the most racially diverse - even with supporting players.

The original Infinity, Inc. had a pretty diverse lineup: It included two members of African-American descent--Northwind (who was part bird-person) and Dr. Midnight (Beth Chapel)--as well as Mr. Bones, who was featured regularly, though it was not revealed that he was African-American till very late in the series. It also included a Hispanic member, Wildcat (Yolanda Montez) and a Jewish member, Nuklon (Albert Rothstein, later Atom Smasher). One of its other members, Obsidian, was much later revealed to be gay.

Hmmm...

Actually, I've always considered the whole "why weren't there more non-white super-heroes" deal somewhat of a non-issue.

I mean, honestly, we all know the reason there wasn't much diversity back in the day in the Legion, JLA, Avengers etc. was the same reason there wasn't much on TV or in movies. For better or worse (well, mostly worse obviously) that's just the way it was.

And it dosen't really need to be explained why all the founding JLAers (for example) were white. I mean, we all know it was because there just weren't many non-white super-hereoes in 1960 (or whenever). Any attempt to ret-con minorities into the founding or to come up with some explanation would just be silly.

Does anybody watch the current Ninja Turtles cartoon? There's a Justice League-type super-team which occasionally guest-stars, and of the nine members, one--the leader and Superman analogue--is black; two are Asian--one Japanese and one Indian; two are race-neutral (a robot and a mutant turtle); and the rest are caucasian. All in all, a surprising amount of diversity, even for a super-team created in 2005. Unfortunately, not being a comic book (althought the audience for the show is larger than it is for most comic books), it may not really count.

In comic books proper, I find the current roster of the Outsiders has a good amount of diversity in it. On the other hand, the Justice League feels as if it has too little, even with the inclusion of Black Lightning and Vixen; given the amount of diversity in DC's "new" heroes (Blue Beetle, The Atom, The Question, Firestorm) I thought that it would only be natural to have one or more on them in the new league. Teen Titans has only one that immediately comes to mind, and he's two decades old.

Part of the problem is, I think, that DC's current crop of writers--at least those writing team books, with the exception of Judd Winick, who has always been keen on diversity--seem too focused on using their favorite old characters rather than making good new ones. Since most old characters are white, there's little chance for new ones to get the spotlight.

I think the prize might have to go to the second version of the Doom Patrol. They only had four members, but of those:

Robotman was a (formerly) white American man
Tempest was a black American man
Celsius was an Indian (as in, from India, making her rare indeed among mainstream comics characters) woman
Negative Woman was a Russian woman

That's pretty diverse.