Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lardy's Roundtable: How forgettable or unforgettable was SLSH/LSH between Earthwar and Levitz II/Giffen?

I said so. Levitz has clearly avoided this subject during his tenure.
Don't think so. In fact, I thought the Shvaughn story very well and sensitively touched. Erin was a person who was very insecure about his body as a mean to attract Jan. His change was a hard personal choice - and this was reflected not in cheapening the experience, but in Jan's acceptance. TMK even hinted at this not being necessary, but such is how insecurity and love can touch someone.

And LL and Vi? Just great material, not at all heavy handed. There was never a blurb on the cover, or a "statement", like Alpha Flight. Just two women in love.

The Shvaughn story was definitely TMK and not Levitz. The story was called "Elements of a Heartbreak" and appeared in LSH v#4 during the middle of the Terra Mosiac storyline. The SW6 Jan played a major role .

Many Legion fans put it on their list of the worst Legion stories of all time. I consider it one of the best and always feel the urge to jump in and defend the story whenever it is criticized.

I won't presume to speak for the majority of gay fans (many of whom don't like the story), but for me it was very confirming. My interpretation is that Jan was revealed as gay. I loved it because of the way it was done and not regardless of the way it was done.

There have been a few posts over the past couple of pages of this thread about what the future will look like. Will it even be recognizable to us? It's a great question. It's one of the central questions of good science fiction. I love it when the Legion veers more toward science fiction than super hero stories. ProFem is a great science fiction concept. Imagine that pharmacuticals have advanced to the point that gender can be changed with a pill or injection. How exactly would that work? Does the medicine change genetic structure, body type, hormones, and anatomy? Maybe it's some kind of cocktail pill that mixes several medicines and addresses each of those elements of gender.

Take it a step further and ask what happens when that medicine becomes unavaliable during a war. Most war comics focus on the big battles and shoot outs. How refreshing to see a story that focuses more on the ground level impact of a war. How does war impact those not on the front lines? What happens off the battlefield? If gender altering medicines become unavailable surley life saving drugs and basic food supplies must be impacted as well. The story makes a much deeper statement about the nature of war and the horrors of war than is typically made in comic books.

Over the years gay fans have frequently asked for the inclusion of openly gay characters in the Legion, just as gay fans of all media have asked for representation. It's always seems like a fair and reasonable request to me. More often than not, the response includes a listing of reasons why that isn't a reasonable request, why it isn't a proper request, why it isn't a necessary request, or explanations and rationalizations of why exclusion doesn't equal discrimination or homophobia. Seldom is the response actually to include a gay character, let alone to include the variety of characters that would be truly representative of the diversity of sexual and gender orientations. A popular response with Legion readers is to point out that maybe things will be so different in the future that labels like gay won't be necessary. The exclusion of gay characters has nothing to with homophobia. The future will be so advanced and everyone will be so enlightened that it just won't be a big deal. That's why you don't see anyone who looks like you, acts like you or represents you in these stories. Don't worry about it. It's a good thing, really. Sorry, I don't buy it. With or without labels, I believe that part of human nature is that as long as there are humans, as long as their have been humans, there will be a certain number of people who prefer the opposite gender, a certain number who prefer both genders, and certain number who prefer the same gender. For most of human history we have chosen to kill, demonize, criminalize, or label as sick those who fall into the last category. An enlightened future would show different orientations even if the labels were no longer needed.

But let's take the argument to another level. What if society has moved on to a point where not only are labels for sexual/social orientation no longer necessary, but also to a point where labels of gender aren't necessary? Male and female are more fluid concepts. The enlightened people of the future don't worry so much about silly labels like "boy", "girl", "man" or "woman". Perhaps we will be so advanced that somebody changing their gender wouldn't cause people to bat an eyelash or think anything odd at all. In a world where gender can be changed so completely by taking a pill at an early age would it really be deceitful not to let people know what gender you started out as? Could it be something akin to dying your hair in this day and age? Would it be more of white lie than a betrayal not to tell people that you started out as boy. In that world, would Jan's comment about loving Shvaughn in spite of the ProFem instead of because of it be the eqivalant of a guy who suddenly finds out that is wife is truly a blond instead of a redhead. "Hey, Baby. I didn't know you were dying your hair all these years, but do you know what? I really like blonds better than redheads". Maybe we don't have a label for guys who like blonds better. We do know they have a preference. By telling Shvaughn that, Jan revealed his preference. He is gay, even in a world that has moved beyond the need for the word gay. It works for me.

I also loved that the concept of gender roles had moved beyond current reality. Shvaughn was a cop. A tough cop. Yeah, we have female cops here in the present, but we still consider being a police officer more of a traditionally male job. It was great that Shvaughn changed her gender, became to woman that she truly believed herself to be, and that woman wanted to be cop. Layered, complex, beautiful.

I think what many people dislike about the story is that they perceive that it revealed Shvaughn's inner insecuritues and made her appear weaker. It had the opposite impact on me. She was on the verge of becoming the chief of the Science Police. She was a damn good cop. She was in a real relationship with the man she had loved since she was a teenager. She had accomplished so much in her life, not in spite of gender reversal, but probably because of it. She felt comfortable as the person she chose to be. That's not a weak person. Those aren't the accomplishments of an insecure person. After that story, I viewed her as a much stronger person than I ever had before.

Another reason that I think people dislike the story is that they view it as a stunt, a gimmick, or something done just for shock value. The inclusion of SW6 Jan's struggle with the fact that he used his powers to kill added to story. The legend that children on his planet were told as a lesson on how not to misuse their powers was a great addition. It gave the story even more meaning. A stunt is something that writers use when they really don't have a story to tell. This issue had many stories to tell. It's amazing how much was packed into it.

The art was also top notch. Swan and Doran. They earned their pay. The styles blended well and told a beautiful story. I encourage anyone who hasn't read the story in a while to pick it up and give it another chance. It holds up well.

Well said, Jerry. "Elements of a Heartbreak" was one of my favorite highlights of TMK, too, for exactly the reasons you describe. Seldom has any story so fully explored the science fiction ramifications of the Legion.

It must also be said that Sean/Shvaughn came from a world where tolerance of homosexuality was not practiced. This shows that the ideals and values of the future do not have to be any more uniform than they are now.

If I may also speculate a bit, I think that another reason fans hate this story is because many had accepted for years that Shvaughn was a woman. The story changed our perceptions of a long-time, popular supporting character, and fans, generally, dislike changing our perceptions. I think this is also a key reason why many dismiss the Garth-is-Proty story. Forget about hair color; it's like learning that your parents aren't really your parents.

I confess that I was prepared to hate these stories before I read them. After all, they do sound gimmicky. But such a thoughtful and heart-felt job was done with them that I came to accept their revelations as both logical and brilliant. Again, they explored the possibilites of science fiction in ways that hadn't been done before in Legion stories.

Sometimes, people undergo changes in real life and their friends say "You're not the person I thought you were." Others learn to accept the change as part of the inevitable, beautiful process of becoming who we really are. Either way, change can be jarring. It's difficult to separate one's love for a person (or a character) from the traits one loves about that person. It takes stepping back from the situation and being willing to let go of preconceived notions to accept the change as positive.

Yes, changing perceptions is hard. Especially when we're talking about a person not being who they appear to be. At first blush, that makes a person appear weaker. Like a liar. But then you wonder what virtues a person has that makes them keep up the facade.

Garth as proty is another good example. To some people it made Imra look stupid and weak because she didn't know. I think she did know. She chose to stay with the new Garth to honor his attempted sacrafice, to honor the original Garth's sacrafice, for the sake of her family. She chose not to reveal his secret so as not to deny his other loved ones (Ayla, Rokk, his parents) the comfort of having Garth in their lives. She wanted to keep them from having to face his true death. She chose not to confront him in order to protect him. Again, she came out of the story appearing much stronger.

I think Imra only knew deep down, but wouldn't admit it to herself consciously. Which would make it the first of many stories about Imra practicing self-deception. It's one of the pillars of her characterization now.

I'm comfortable with Imra a) knowing and not telling anyone, or b) choosing not to know herself. I'm also comfortable with the ambiguity of the story.

Most relationships, I've discovered, operate on similar ambiguity. You never really know what your partner is thinking or feeling unless he or she tells you honestly and openly. You take a lot of things on faith in order to make a relationship work. You also overlook a lot of things.

I love the idea of heroes being human and having to wrestle with the same decisions ordinary folks face. I love it when they make good choices even when "right" and "wrong" are not so clearly defined. Imra chose to love "Garth" in spite of any doubts she might have had. That's a wonderful metaphor for relationships in general.

I'm a bit late for this, but I'm itching to pitch this in...
And their desires! "NINE DELICIOUS FLAVORS FROM NINE PLANETS Kara: How the old ice-cream parlor has changed! This Martian ice-cream tastes...er...free of butter, animal fat, saturated fat, hydrogenated oil, trans fat, polyunsaturated fat, carbs, sodium, and Xanthan gum!" While we have certainly 'landed' on Mars and have more ice-cream flavours than you can shake a schtick at, if it was reimagined for today's times, it'd have gone like that. (The Xanthan gum represents potential paranoia of nutrionists everywhere, and it could be retconned to be a substance of Xanthu. But that's like saying Lex Luthor produced Lexus autos, eh?


And on more of Imra's issues with her all-knowing mind, I recommend The Legion #20. Yes, it's Reboot, but that's a rare Imra feature, and a deeper insight to her relationship and possible self-deceptions...

Wow, you put it so much better than me, Jerry. Great words. My only "discordance", if I may say, is that idealism that the future will be "positively" more open. I think it will be just as confusing as today. As I said somewhere else, homosexuality was actually well-seen among ancient Greeks, to be also okay with Romans and banished in the Middle Ages. Now, we probably live in the "best" times for gender "choices" (I don't like the idea that someone's sexual desire is a "choice" - because desire is not a rational thing. A person is gay/bi/hetero because that's how he/she feels attracted to, IMO). But among the various races that occupy a place in Legion's future, there might be some more obscure and religion-driven that act opposite of gay relationships. Maybe I am not a Positivist guy - I am more of a Social Construtivist myself...

There's kind of a disconnect here, and I'm guilty of it myself.

On the one hand, in an ideal future world, gender, race, sexuality, etc. would be utter non-issues. In one issue we'd see Jo flirting with Ayla, in the next Ayla would be flirting with Vi, in the next Jo would be flirting with Gim, and nobody would say boo, because it would be completely irrelevant.

It would only become relevant if a particular characters *culture* deemed it so, such as Cham 'not being attracted to fixed-state sentients' or Shady revealing that she's only attracted to dominant types, regardless of gender, or Thom's parents being introduced as a same-gender couple, with some casual reference to Xanthu'ans as generally preferring same-sex relationships and having children created from their own gametes through medical means.

On the other hand, it's often said that the worst kind of 'ism' is to make someone invisible, and that dismissing issues of race and gender and sexuality completely does them a disservice, since the readers live in a world where these issues are very real and not going away magically anytime soon. Introducing a black character, and then not having him be of African descent in any way, is, in some eyes, a bit of a cop-out. He's worse than a token, since he's a token that *doesn't actually represent that group.*

So I'm kind of stuck in the middle. Part of me would like to see more racial / gender / sexuality diversity (and a hell of a lot more actual *aliens!*), but another part of me would be just as thrilled if the entire set of issues were just taken off the table by presenting such things as a non-issue. Having one of the same-gender pairs of Legionnaires hook up and nobody even comment on it, for instance, because it's happened before and very few people in the 30th century see it as any different than a mixed-gender pairing.

But, it does kinda need to be one or the other, IMO. *Not* addressing this sort of thing is a worse cop-out than any. If every single character presented is white or straight or male or whatever, and there is no rationale presented for this, it begins to look deliberately exclusionary.

It would be just as valid a view for Shady to come out and say that she doesn't find girls attractive, viewing them as competitors and potential rivals, and for that to be pointed out as a uniquely Talokkian view, one that is not necessarily shared by Winathians or Tritonians. Something else else like that would be the most ironic 'outing' incident, with Shady being revealed as being, GASP, straight, in a universe where not a whole lot of people give a crap about whether or not their partner has an innie or an outie.

To me the Element Lad story still felt forced...

In fact I'd be willing to bet money that DC would not let TMK just make Element Lad straight up gay. In fact I think the reason he was given Shvaughn as a girlfriend in the first place was to end the fan speculation(started by Shooter no less), that he was gay.

The way it read to me is that Element Lad was a heterosexual, he was in love with a biological female(who must have felt female internally) and he was enormously happy in that relationship...and he just accepted the Shvaughn as male because that's the kinda "deep" guy that he is.


To me that's bi-sexual, leaning towards hetero...not a man or woman who is pretty much totally attracted to the same sex, as I have always understood gay to mean.

IF it had been reversed and Shvaughn had been a female taking drugs to make her male and had been in a lengthy male/male relationship with E-Lad...and then he accepted her as female? Would that make him straight?

I think the gay Legion fans, a long time and devoted segment of the fandom who have supported the book through thick and thin, got ripped off on that one...I think it was done that way because that's the only way TMK could write the story, that's the only way DC would let them...it wreaks of non-creative interference.


Similar to Kirk and Uhura, the first inter-racial kiss on TV...the writers couldn't show them doing it willingly...it had to be forced.


Man, the things that make people uptight are just completely silly when you really look at it.


I mean I look at that story and I see it had the potential to be offensive to just about everyone. DC got lucky it was received as well as it was.


Still...that was probably the only way that story was going to get written at that point in time. Plus they did have to work around the fact that E-Lad had been in a hetero relationship for a good long while.


I don't rate it in my worst stories of all time...but now that I am aware it was a 5YG ERA story, it does have exactly that same contrived, someone is making these guys jump through hoops, feel that I felt just about all of the time I was reading the 5YG and is a big reason I didn't enjoy that era of the Legion.


LOL somehow it feels wrong arguing with gay Legion Fans and it feels like I am telling them why they should be offended by that story, when they aren't...so I will pass on doing it any further, even though I enjoy just about any and all controversial debates. No offense intended guys....sincerely. It's just not one of my favorite Legion stories because it felt contrived.

The one other point I want to make on this, and this one I am going to defend a bit more vociferously...it hasn't been human nature to stigmatize things like homosexuality, race, or even nudity...at least not heavily.

These sorts of stigmatization to harmless, personal attributes inclinations arose almost entirely out of state societies....and were virtually not existent in tribal societies and their precursors.


I'll throw gender inequality in there as well...

These things are relatively new to humanity and rose accordingly with societal stratification.


Skin color, sexuality, even nudity, these things have only been heavly stigmatized for probably 10% of human history, or less, not nearly for most of it. And they still don't carry a stigma in parts of the world...the Native Americans didn't attatch any stigma to homosexuality, they accepted it and even gave them sort of a Shaman status due to their understanding of both the male and female nature.

...and if we're still doing it a thousand years from now at a majority level or moving back that way , I will be extremely disappointed in us. You want to judge someone for killing someone fine...I get that, or dishonesty or breaking their word...I get it. You want to judge someone over something miniscule like a sexual preference of something like skin color, and impose these beliefs on other people against their will, when none of them involve disrespecting someone else, at all, and that's obviously and easily being overly judgemental. That is the hurtful and non-respectful act...like lying, or killing, that is the disrespect and personal violation, lessening, of another human being, who has done nothing whatsoever in relation to others to deserve it.

It's all about respect...save the judgements for those that don't.


And these things being a contentious social issue or something people are made to feel lesser over, even to the degree they are now a thousand years from now are not what I consider futuristic. Sure there will be those that feel that way...because we are all individuals...but I would hope it's a not prevalent mindset or practice, I would hope that attitude is what it stigmatized by then...and I see us moving that way. I doubt we'll make it a thousand years from now if that trend in the other direction continues...we damn sure won't be traveling to other planets or breaking time barriers if that's the direction we go in.[/soapbox]

I will agree with Superboy about one thing: how does Shvaughn turning out to be Sean make Jan gay? Is the spin supposed to be that he somehow subconsciously knew all along that Shvaughn was a guy? I don't think that holds water.

My opinion is that the story doesn't show in any way that Jan was always gay, and I'm unsure whether that was really Tom and Mary's intent all along. Yeah, I'm sure the old fan speculation was a starting point for them, but I don't see how they or the fans would see this story proving he had a homosexual preference.

What I believe the story shows is that Jan, a spiritual man and a believer in change who lost his whole race to genocide, is very unlikely to see beauty in only one form. Call him bisexual or whatever, but a being like Jan, who can change any element into another, wouldn't be attracted so much to physical appearances or certain genitalia as much as he would be to the person within. All of us look for a balance between inner and outer beauty in our lovers, but Jan would most likely focus on the inner, almost exclusively.

I could just imagine a scene where Jan removes Ferro Lad's mask, looks deep into Andrew's eyes and doesn't recoil in the least. It would've actually been one of the most beautiful scenes ever shown in comics if someone had ever actually shown it.

So at the end of the TMK story of Jan and Sean, they don't get together. I haven't read it in awhile, but I think this is not because Jan is unready to accept Sean, but that Sean is unready to accept himself. is that correctish? (I also can't remember why they broke up in the first place during the five-year gap or whether they officially ever got back together before Zero Hour. Anyone have those details?)

So while it's a beautiful story that I'm glad was told, I don't see how it's being revelatory of Jan's gayness. Bisexual or, I dunno, omnisexual (?), yeah...but homosexual? I'm certainly no expert on homosexuality, but I certainly ain't seein' it!

That's exactly how I saw it, Lard. Jan for me is beyond homosexual and got enraged by Shvaughn's incapability of dealing with himself as he was. Superboy's reading was too literal on that point, and the text and dialogue is more subtle than that. Also, from what I read at the time, this plot was completely Tom & Mary's (not Keith's) and thought about for a long time (very unlikely to have been forced upon by TPTB). It is on one of the sorely missed lettercols.

The reason I know for certain that story was intended to end with Element Lad being gay is that Tom and Mary Bierbaum said he was gay in their descriptions of the Legionaires. It used to be on a web page somehwere, along with Shooter's descriptions of the Legionaires...actually I think those descriptions are on this forum somewhere.

Here we go, from the Encyclopedia Galactica Forum here at LW:

Element Lad - Jan Arrah

Shooter: Hmm. An introvert who covers with snappy patter! Could be gay, who knows? He is confident, almost arrogant. He has a right to feel very special, and his is an overwhelming power.

Bierbaums: Came out of a society that had to teach their offspring from infancy not to turn their playmates into molybdenum anytime they get into a fight over the tinker toys. So he's a youth of vast discipline and spirituality. That's meant all these years he's been secretly, methodically dealing with the unspeakable horror of Roxxas' slaughter, coping in his own intensely private way. That's meant there's such disconnect between Jan's physical impulses and what his mind allows him to act upon, that questions of sexuality (yes, he's gay) are almost irrelevant.


See they don't say it's the person that matters to him or that he's on the fence about it...or that he's searching, experimenting, bisexual...they are pretty emphatic that he is gay, no two ways about it, even thought they say the sex aspect of it is pretty much irrelevant. But that is not the way that story plays out...and he was in a monogamous relationship with a female for years.

I am almost certain that is as far as DC would let them go with the character. And I had forgotten that they broke up at the end of that story...that only serves to convince me more that DC wouldn't let them tell the story they really wanted to tell...or make it obvious that Element Lad was gay.

It makes you wonder though...because they seemed to have an easier time of it with Violet and Lightning Lass.

I don't know how they could equate "questions of sexuality...[being]...almost irrelevant" to his being gay exactly. Yes, he would be open to homosexuality as an option, but he'd also be open to heterosexuality (and possibly other options). Being "gay", to me, would imply you're exclusively homosexual, which Jan is not and which every other part of the description, aside from the parenthetical part, would seem to support. It's kind of annoying that they'd put it that way, really.

Since we are on the subject of relationships...


I don't really like a heavy focus on the relationships. I really don't like it when the Legionaires get married as that pretty much nkills them as usable characters due to that stupid rule....but even without that rule, there is something about marrying characters that makes them...resolved. They are no longer developing characters...just sliding(usually happily) towards middle age. Or something. I am not speaking out against marriage...I'm just not that into reading about it. I don't like the Superman Lois Lane marriage and didn't like the Peter Parker MJ marriage either.


Like the SG and LL upncoming break up in the regular title...I am going to catch some heat for this, but I am looking forward to that as I am thoroughly sick of their love story and I am looking forward to them becoming living breathing active characters again...instead of a collective one. I got excited when Shooter mixed things up a bit...as I don't feel their love makes them interesting as characters after 40 years or so, they just have a joint characterization as the happily married couple. And it's good to see SG back on the market....

My 3 favorite female Legionaires are Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl and the Silver Age Lu...and you know, they really didn't do much with any of them for most of the original Legion run...it wasn't until they turned PG into Phase that anything really interesting was done with her...and then unfortunately they went with the same hardened bitter female characterization that Vi was taken in...and that SG looks like she's going to be taken in, in Johns Legion, although I'm not sure Johns is going to do that...but I have an ominous feeling about it...it's might be that's she's already sporting the stock hardened bitter female burr hair cut that they always give the female characters when they take them that route.

I mean couldn't they take them that route and have them grow their hair longer for a change? Just to mix things up a bit? Is there some kind of rule that getting hard and bitter has to go hand in hand with a short hair cut?


Seriously...if I needed another reason to dislike John Byrne(and I really don't) it's that character...it was great when he did it with Sue Richards. I haven't liked it the other 89 times I've seen it done. It's basically become a stock characterization/look for female characters in need of development. It was blasphemy to do that with Phantom Girl...IMO.

Trust me...women who wear pigtails into their mid 20's don't ever do the hardened bitter thing...

Chemistry in Threeboot? Seriously, I haven't heard about that before. I don't feel like there would be any further followups to Reboot, or particular characters in Threeboot for L3W, though.

And did Tom and/or Mary really say that?

I'd argue that the Legion is one of the better-suited among mainstream comics properties for couples to marry, mainly because the largeness of the cast leaves room to tell so many stories with so many characters. If LL and SG have achieved romantic bliss, well there's always, say, Light Lass and Timber Wolf out there with their relationship on the rocks.

It's not nearly the same as with Clark & Lois and Pete & MJ, as stars of their own titles, where you're potentially writing yourself into a corner in terms of eliminating a whole slew of possibilities that you've closed the door on. Legion has such a large cast with such a revolving focus that you can do so much more with their personal lives.

This doesn't work with almost any other super group. As large as the X-Men cast is, there are always a handful of principal characters who serve as the flagbearers. Any marriage that occurs between any of them is ultimately doomed to fail, even Jean and Cyclops, because those characters are so central to the franchise. And if Wolvie gets engaged or married or even gets a steady, you know she's doomed one way or another.

Only Reed and Sue seem untouchable among couples in super groups. Even then, creative team after creative team on that title likes to tease the possibility of them breaking up.

But the Legion, with its size and relative isolation, can have enduring marriages and such. Whether that hurts any specific character involved in the relationship is severely debatable. I'd argue that both Garth and Imra were stronger characters and had many of their best moments after their marriage.

However, I agree that Threeboot doesn't have to be beholden to relationships in prior continuities. If Garth and Imra break up permanently under Shooter, I'm all for it. I can definitely separate the characters from one continuity to the next, and if you're going to reboot, you may as well explore different paths. As I've said before, I was rooting for Cos and Imra during the Reboot when the possibility was titillated. I think I really only started rooting for Imra and Garth towards the end of Legion Lost, really.

But like Penalty Killah implied, any chemistry that Shooter brings to the table among these characters (old or new) is welcome after there being pretty much none whatsoever during the Waid years!

I don't have a problem with their description...or Shooter's...in fact I agree with them. Somehow it fits Element Lad and the way he has been characterized over the years. I can't describe the exact reason I think it fits him...it's just one of those things where he sort of wrote himself into it as was the case with so many of the Legionaires character development over the years...bits and pieces of characterization throughout two decades and multiple writers and when you add them all up that's what you get...kind of like Mon-El not being a real vocal leader or by the book generic strong man type and more of an enigma who was keeping something that would drive anyone else insane from doing it to him, somehow, IOW, not Superboy, even though he's more powerful and arguably tougher. Making Mon a Superboy replacement was a disservice to his character IMO. He was less interesting as a fleshed out and more legendary well known character to me. I liked the enigma...oh yeah that quiet guy that looks like the boy next door, he's more powerful than Superboy, smarter than Superboy, and he's over a thousand years old, spending much of that time as an incorporeal ghost in a hellish prison dimension.

Pre Crisis Mon-El was the most enigmatic character in the Legion and one of the most enigmatic characters in the DC Uni...nay, in all of comicdom....for the exact reason that he was so powerful and tough, and oooold, but was not Superboy.

But I digress...

I think Element Lad works better as a gay character than as straight one and it fits him, or at least it does with the Pre Crisis E-Lad. I just don't like the way they did it. And I do think their intent in that story was to make him gay. I thought that at the time when I read it, before I ever read their descriptions. I just don't think they could make it crystal clear....

That's actually very good point...you are right. You can pull it off in a large cast book like the Legion...


True...absolutely true. Something else else about them being married just doesn't work for me...and I don't really know what it is, but it doesn't, and it never has.

Those are some excellent points and I've never really thought about it that way with the X-Men...but I think you're right about that now that you mention it.


Now, that one would bother me...Reed and Sue truly do belong together IMO. Yeah I just can't see them single.


Right...I mean the sort of change I wouldn't mind seeing, as opposed to, oh say, Jeckie to a snake lol. Although I know a lot of Legion Fans will be dead set against that break up.


I really am enjoying Shooter's run...he's doing the best Post Crisis Legion IMO. Unfortunately he's doing it when fans are finally getting the Legion they've been clamoring for back.

Sounds like the Bierbaums don't really know what 'gay' means, then. Attracted to the same gender does NOT equal indifferent to questions of sexuality.

Yet another fine example of trying to force a non-minority into a minority position and claim that the minority is represented. Oh, he's not really gay, but he's kinda sorta gay, so we'll toss that sop to the gay readers and hope they fall for it, rather than introduce a character who is *actually* gay (black, whatever).

And that bugs me, particularly Didio and his bone-headed insistence that the 52 universes of the multiverse can only have one surviving Legion of Super-Heroes and he's gotta have all the others killed off.

Meanwhile, one-shot Elseworlds like Red Rain get their own freaking universe... That's about as nonsensical as saying that Superboy's Legion gets it's own multiverse, but the JSA, Teen Titans and Green Lantern Corps need to be destroyed to make room for them!

One thing that needs to be stressed is that "Elements of a Heartbreak" is, despite its title, not Jan's story. It's Sean's.

That is, Sean is--in story-telling terms--the protagonist: the one who undergoes a change or develops a deaper understanding of himself as a result of the story. So, yes, the story does not "prove" Jan's gayness. It was not designed to do so.

I'm not sure how you understood their passage to mean this, Set. They are describing a particular character from a particular culture (Trom) and with a particular past (Roxxas's slaughter)--all of which influences his attitudes toward sexuality. To assume that they mean that homosexuality alone implies indifference is not supported by their statement.

I think I understand how you feel. The same questions were brought up when it was revealed that Shooter intended for Ferro Lad to be black. What good does it do to have the only masked character in the Legion be black?

But there's a danger in seeing a character who represents a particular group as nothing more than a representative of that group. That perception inhibits what can be done with a character. If Element Lad were to turn evil, for example (as happened in LEGION LOST), does that mean that all gay people are evil, or that the creators intend to imply this? Or is it one particular character acting in a way that is true to his or her own character, regardless of how others who share his/her orientation might act?

So from the other point of the view, is Sean gay or someone who feels he is a woman trapped in a man's body? From my memory, the story portrays Sean as a gay male who thought the only way he could ever be with the man he had a severe crush on was to make himself a woman.

From my (limited) understanding, only a very, VERY small percentage of men who are attracted to other men actually want to be a woman or, more precisely feel they are women trapped in male bodies. Is a man really gay if he literally wants to be a woman? I don't really feel that qualifies as gay, unless it's a subcategory or something.

But if I'm remembering the story correctly, then Sean was neither purely gay nor someone who always wanted to be a woman. I'd say he is in a third category: a man attracted to another man who felt he could only be with his love if he made himself a woman. Was this purely because Sean felt Jan would never accept him romantically as a man? Or did Sean have a belief system that made him think it would be wrong for two men to be together, so the Pro-Fem would make it right?

To me, it's fascinating food for thought and not something that can be put into a neat cookie-cutter shape. What's clear to me is that Sean had deep self-esteem issues...so deep that 'self-esteem' is probably an insufficient description. I'm sure someone with a degree in psychology could do it more justice.