Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Im still a bit worried about ultimate Legion

I'm not a person who is opposed to change but I don't know about change for the sake of change and no other reason. I am for the most part taking a wait and see approach towards this new Legion but a few alarms have been set off, the one that springs to mind is Thom is now black. This is the exact same stunt Marvel pulled with Nick Fury in the Ultimate books and it hasn't improved the character or added to the story in any way and was totally a look were different stunt.
I hope I am proven wrong with our beloved Legion but if a decent writer is handeling a story if something is wrong with a character they could fix the character or even replace the character with a new one without resorting to slight of hand bollocks.
Am I being too harsh?

Not if you were attached to the last Legion. I just happen to be more excited about the Legion now than I have been in over 10 years.

I'm annoyed that so many of the new Legion are white! Diversity is kewl!!

Wasn't this always the case? At least one of the SA Legionnaires is now black. And isn't Karate Kid now something other than white? I realize in the past that he was supposed to be Asian of some sort, but this rarely showed through in the art.

I have no problem with a black member or even a whole new Legion that is 100% black, green. orange and purple but I kind of think that if they want these characters make them don't just take Thom Kallor from Xanthu and say your now black. Have Gxe#st from planet boobies and he can be black with gravity powers and a weakness to blue stars and 6 sisters if you like. It's just the change for sake of change that has me concerned.

Well, okay, but I think a bigger question is, 'Does it take anything *away* from the character?' We're talking Legion here, so the answer, in the hands of a competent writer, would be absolutely 'no.' If they're changing the race of an established character from our era, you're changing more than just the colour of their skin - you're changing their background, the likely history of their parents and family, the way they interact with today's culture.

In Thom's case, however, none of this is an issue. The guy's from a different planet in the future, and there's about a thousand other things which should influence him more. If he ever muses on his skin colour at a deeper level than, 'Hmm, which colour of Future!spandex would best bring out my complexion,' I'll be very disapointed. So it's not like they're changing his character more than any other (Example: did you see Brainy? He has wires sticking out of his neck. What about 'Colossal' Boy's new history? *That's* changing a character).

It's not just "change for change" - the Legion is (still!) terribly under-representative, even for a book *not* set a thousand years in the future. And this is because it's been around for so long, and because nobody really wants to get rid of the core Legion team. It wouldn't be the Legion otherwise, and just subbing in a black Star Boy clone would be *much* more offensive to long term fans - at least *this* one.

If you accept that Colossal (Micro?) Boy is still an analogue of himself, despite the *species* change, but have real issues with a bit of extra pigment in Thom's case, you've got it backwards, IMO. It's the less superficial changes to the characters that are either interesting or worrying, depending.

Personally, what I'd like to see are more Legion/UP characters that are obviously, visually, human, but *not* so easily classified into our neat categories of caucasian, asian, latin, etc. If you've got *human*-looking aliens (as opposed to just *humanoid*), fine, but maybe they've got slightly different eye shapes, or noses, or tend to have hair/skin colour combinations that aren't often seen. I'd be happier with *that* than I would the 'token black guy' syndrome.

ETA: fixed code

You know... has anyone commented on the fact that Gim from another planet probably won't be Jewish anymore?

Why not? Folks wander.

I read somewhere on Legion World that someone came up with an idea that linked Gim's new race to Judaism.

Thom was just the first example that came to mind but yes the micro boy thing is another fine example will the fact that when he is big it's his normal size add to the story or just be another hey look at us thing.

Somewhat off topic but...

I think using the term "ultimate" legion is a bit incorrect. The reboot was more of an ultimate version of the legion in that it retold much of the original history but with slight twists. Just like the Marvel ultimate line.

With Mark Waid's all new stories policy, I think re-imagining really is the best way to describe this new legion.

I think that it is more a way to make the character more interesting, than a "look, somethings different from the last reality" which Mark Waid has said he is conciously not doing.

There was nothing particularly fascinating or essential about Gim's last origin aka. got his powers from a meteorite, so I don't think the whole race of giants thing is going to create all that much controversy.

I do hope this book is great and blows my mind away and draws all new readers to the book. But I still have a niggle in the back of my head that this race of giants might be an interesting story but why not have that as the story of a new character.

The meteorite might have been an interesting story if they'd ever investigated where the meteorite came from, and why it gave Gim powers.

The meteorite could still play into Gim's origin. Maybe we'll get a bit more explanation.

Hmm... I guess something has to explain his shrinking powers...

No, it was a "well, how do you know he's NOT" thing rather than a "he is."

I blame Wanda.

Hmm. I think I get what you're saying now, and it looks like you read comics, or at least the Legion, a little differently than I do. For me, it's like this.

There's the first layer of Legion... mythology, which is something like 'A group of kids with special powers fighting on the side of good in the future.' And then there's the second layer, which is the individual Legionaires. Details don't enter until even further in.

I hate to make the comparision, but if you think Greek myths, it's the same deal. 1) A pantheon of gods. 2) Zeus who throws lightning, Aphrodite the goddess of love... But anything else is a little hazy and open for reinterpretation. I've heard about three seperate and mutually contradictory 'origin' stories for Aphrodite, but she's still the same god, if you get what I mean. If you need to use the ancient Greek myths, you don't substitute in a new god of love - you tweak *her* story until it works for what you're trying to do. (And if you decide to pretend that there never was a goddess of love, that lack *will* be noticed.)

Gim, along with many of the other preboot characters, is part of the Legion mythos. If you're going to have a "Colossal Boy" character, it really does have to be some version of him.
The DCU lends itself to iconic characters, which is why it can overhaul itself once in a while (whether it *should* or not is up for debate), and also why the members of team books like the JLA or Legion of Superheroes are more constant than the X-men.

If you see the characters as *only* the sum of their particular lives and experiences, instead of icons, that's probably why you're so upset that those histories are being tweaked. In which case you might want to try to tell yourself that they *aren't* the same characters - they're just some mostly unrelated people from another dimension...

Yeah you do make some good points and maybe it is a case of how I wrap my head around it. I guess now I'm a little sad that there is somebody called Nura who has dreams but she isn't the Nura I know my Nura has been relegated to a cancelled divison.

Pizza Delivery Girl, you make some very good points here. I'm really impressed.

I could swear someone had an idea about having Gim's race visiting Earth centuries in the past. They were the basis for the Biblical giants. Thus, while not necessarily a Jew, he was linked.

That's an excellent post, Pizza Delivery Girl. Very thought provoking.

*g* Thanks. (I tend to overthink these things, just *ever* so slightly...)

Making Thom black I don't think is a stunt. Making Fury black I don't think was a stunt either. Well making him Samuel L. Jackson I do think is a stunt. The only problem I have with that is the large number of black characters that exmilitary, etc. Thom looks like a refreshing new take. But for all i know he may be an ex-military teenager with Tom Clancy speak...ick.

Jorge

Another thing...some may see it as a stunt because they may think by making a character black it may be an attempt of making it "hip" ala MTV type hype or something.

I think Waid had 18 white kids that had 1950s white bread smallville written all over them...and that just doesn't fly as diverse future too anyone. This series looks good but using the 18 Adv characters to start off was a big mistake IMO.

It needed to be more diverse so people who complain about silly things like a black Thom...can get their white Thom and we can get other black characters, non-humanoids, etc.

Jorge