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?

Page 11 of LSH #31. Shvaughn cuts her hair and tells Jan her real name is Sean.

Jan: You just have to understand this..This is not what's changed between us. This wasn't what we shared.

Shvauaghn: Oh come on. Are you trying to tell me you find this as attractive as Shvaughn?

Jan: Don't you understand? Anything we shared physically...

Shvaughn: Oh Damn..

Jan: it was in SPITE of the Profem, not BECAUSE of it..!

The emphasis on spite and because are Tom and Mary's not mine. That's Jan's coming out scene. I don't see any other way to read it except that Jan is telling Shvaughn that he is gay.

I dunno...it's still somewhat vague to me, Jerry. I read it kind of as, "I never cared whether you were male or female, Shvaughn!"

Maybe I'm just dense?

I go with Lard Lad on that. It is very clear that the use of "in SPITE of" means he didn't care how she looked. If he did care, he wouldn't even go through a relationship with the Shvaughn persona in the first place. And that didn't happen: E-Lad actually liked Sean for what he was inside. Something else else I would expect from E-Lad: ambiguity and a bit of detachment to "physical" things. One of my favorite stories on a mainstream book, because it didn't treat it as a black-and-white cliché sort of thing.

On the text page that follows the story, Shvaughn writes a letter to Gigi Cusimano, in which she confesses that she (then he, Sean) fell in love with Jan at age 14. That's a pretty clear indication that Sean was gay.

On the same page, Shvaughn says she is from the planet Duar, where "women are women and the men better be Men with a capital 'M.' It's not the kind of world that encourages you to be different"--different, it is implied, in the sense of being gay.

Later, she describes joining a "Freebie commune in Tupelo," where people were "into things like" Profem and Promen. So changing gender came about as a result of opportunity and the crowd Sean was running with. "In hindsight," Shvaughn writes, "that was the dumbest thing I ever came up with. Just because I couldn't accept me for who I was, I was so certain Jan wouldn't accept me for who I was. So, I guess what I did next was a mistake, a mistake I kept making for the next 18 years."

At the beginning of the story, Jan's narration tells us how needy Shvaughn was. He had started to outgrow her, but she needed him more. So, yes, self-esteem issues were at play here.

The irony in all this, of course, is that Sean was gay and Jan was gay, but neither of them realized it.

I would say that Sean was gay and Jan was... something else. Bi-sexual if you want. He should have had a thing for girls too, otherwise he wouldn't BE with Shvaughn in the first place.

If the Bierbaums are to be believed, Jan was gay. But also, if they are to be believed, it didn't matter to him.

Also, at the beginning of the story, Jan suggests that it was Shvaughn who initiated the relationship ("But she kept coming.") and that he went along because he was "tired of trying to make it alone."

He goes on to say, "I guess she needed something physical . . . but I was on a spiritual journey--and so sure they had to be two separate things."

Make of that what you will.

Still doesn't scream "GAY!" to me, Huey. As with all the other evidence presented here, it only strengthens my belief that Jan has no sexual preference. In a way, considering Jan having lost all that he had and having the unique perspective of someone with his particular power and belief system, I see sexual preference being irrelevant to him. Hell, the act of having sex itself may not have been important to him at all.

Sean/Shvaughn helped teach him otherwise, as your quote would illustrate. Shvaughn taught him that human contact, particularly having a lover, was indeed important. Jan could've been shown this by a male or a female; it didn't matter. He fell in love with the person inside and still loved that person when the outer self changed because the outer self was never important in the first place.

In a way, that's a more beautiful message than any could have been that was strictly hetero- or homosexually-centric. The problem for Sean is that his own insecurities and self-doubt dogged the relationship. Jan's acceptance of Sean was never the issue.

I think that all characterizations of Jan ever since have been painted by this portrayal. Reboot Jan was seen as "flaky" and eventually disassociated himself so much from his humanity that he became the Progenitor. Threeboot Jan is a bit less defined, but I think what we've seen so far is based on how he sees solid things, including people, as being ever-transitory and therefore unimportant.

The challenge for all the Jans is to look below the spiritual and appreciate life in its current state for what it is. Perhaps then, when he understands and embraces corporeal matters as fully as he can, a true sexual preference might emerge. Until then, he's neither gay nor straight, if indeed he'll ever be just either one.

IMO, it would be a step back for the character to develop a preference. From the quotes above, it sounds more like Jan recognized something of himself in Sean/Shvaugn, a wounded person, in search of a place in a world/universe that doesn't seem to have room for him/her. They'd both 'lost their world' in one way or another, and 'couldn't go home again.' The man who can change anything ends up with someone who is desperately trying to change themself to find their place..

If Vi and Ayla end up in a relationship, after having relationships with Duplicate Boy and Brin, that's possibly bisexual, possibly a 'late bloomer' gay. If Condo and Lyle end up in a relationship, after having no visible relationships with girls, that's sounding a bit more 'gay.'

But Jan doesn't 'count' IMO, 'cause while Sean is portrayed as a confused gay man who becomes transgendered (in a world where that process is easily adopted and reversed), Jan is, IMO, completely beyond such distinctions, and, if anything, seems less-than-thrilled that it's all such a big deal to Sean/Shvaugn. [And I like that characterization. He just shouldn't be held up as a gay character, 'cause he's no more that than he is a straight character. The Bierbaums can shout to the moon that he's GAY, GAY, GAY! HAHAHA! But they didn't *show* that in their story, and had him say something VERY different, that he's beyond that, so that's just creators talking after the fact, which is, IMO, too little, too late. Perhaps they meant it all the time. Perhaps they are talking up how progressive they were. Perhaps they didn't have a really clear grasp on the notion that 'gay' means 'attracted to the same gender' and not just 'dude who slept with a girl who later turned out to be a dude.']

Same issue I have with 'black Thom.' If you want to put a minority in the book, put a darn minority in the book already, don't fart around with almost-kinda-sorta-not-reallys.

I'm actually a fan of the portrayal of Jan's sexuality being ambiguous or not-so-easily defined. Like Set says, if the Bierbaums wanted to show that Jan was gay in that story, they failed. But they did succeed in deepening and better-defining his character while marrying it to his established history in a way I felt was not contradictory.

My problem is more with Sean and how that didn't ring true with all of those stories we read about Shvaughn. It's still a bit of a stretch for me to marry the strong Shvaughn character to the weak, insecure Sean. I certainly would've liked to have seen Sean developed further after that issue to help sell it better. He reappeared a good bit but was never a central character in a story but more of a supporting character for the SW6ers.

But I guess this was an effective device to showcase Jan's character and to explore gender alteration and the psychology behind it. I'm certainly glad the story was told, regardless of some problems I may have with it.

I'd like to keep Jan's sexuality non-specific in whatever Boot he appears in, but as Set said I'd also like an openly gay (non-ambiguously-so) Legionnaire in the mix among the rest of the membership.

Fair enough. The beauty of this story, and TMK overall, is that the creators did not ram one interpretation down our throats. They purposely left some of it ambiguous and open to interpretations, just like (gasp!) real literature.

I almost get the sense that Jan was an unwilling pupil of the art of physical expression. It's not clear from this story if he and Shvaughn ever consummated their relationship. (They may not have, like many couples who wait until marriage). This could be what Shvaughn means when she says "There is no us" (or words to that effect; I don't have the issue in front of me).

But if they did consummate the relationship, one gets the feeling that Jan demonstrated as much enthusiasm for it as going shopping for lingere.

I pretty much agree with Set that those stories haven't really succeeded in their ultimate goal...

Where I differ with Set is that I don't think it's entirely the fault of the creators.


Oh and again, I want to say that it is a gross mischaracterization to classify Shooter as any sort of a bigot...if you add the positive and negatives up, the positives far outweigh the negatives.

The man created the first minority superhero in DC's comics history in his first published work(Karate Kid)...and it appeared the exact same month as the character often credited with being the first minority superhero...the Black Panther.

And his comments on Element Lad should hammer home that he doesn't consider all gays rapists...like I said...if anyone can show me a well known Marvel DC writer of the 70's openly considering whether or not one of their characters was gay, prior to 1975 or 76...I'd like to see it.

To me it looks like Shooter was far ahead of everyone else on these issues if anything. And he was EIC when Northstar was introduced...and he knew he was gay. And the reason he wasn't obviously gay is most likely because of people way above him(Shooter)...just like the case was at DC IMO.

I stand by my position the "Elements of Heartbreak" revealed Jan as gay. It wasn't Tom and Mary throwing anyone a bone. It wasn't a curve ball. Their intention was and is clear. In the synopsis of characters they said it. "Yes, he's gay". That's what they said. Can it really get any clearer than that?

Tom and Mary don't know the definition of gay? Huh? I'm not even sure what that means. There is certainly room for debate on the reasons that someone is gay. There's room for debate on where to draw the lines between predominantly straight/bisexual/predominantly gay. But I think we all know what the word gay means.

I hope I'm not offending anyone, but I am bewildered by some of the responses here. Jan said that anything he and Shvaughn shared physically was in spite of the Profem and not because of it. He didn't say that it didn't matter what Shvaughn looked like. He didn't say that he was so spiritual that sex didn't matter to him. "Anything we shared physically" means that they had sex. Yeah, I guess it could mean they played magnoball together, but to interpret that way would be kind of like avoiding the sun eater in the room, don't you think? They had sex. He enjoyed the sex or at least performed adequately. But it was in spite of the Profem. In spite of the fact that Shvaughn was physically a woman because of the drug. Not because of the Profem. Because the Profem made Shvaughn a woman, not a man. It feels to me like you guys are going out your way to find different intreptations of what Jan could have meant or what Tom and Mary intended.

Is it because Shvaughn and Jan had a relationship and it is hard to accept that a gay man could be in a relationship with a woman for so many years? It happens all the time. A lot of closeted gay men do it. It doesn't mean that they don't love their wives or enjoy their families. They do it for a lot of different reasons. It's not a choice that I would make. It doesn't make them any less gay than me.

It also strikes me as consistent with Jan's early characterization. Most of the guys in the Legion had girfriends early. He didn't.

By the time this story was written, Jan's spiritual nature was an established part of his characterization. There are a lot of people in the world who put a priority on their the spritual feelings and beliefs. Some of them are straight. Some of them are bisexual. Some of them are gay.

There are a lot of people in the world who have relatively low sex drives. Some are straight. Some are bisexual. Some are gay.

I still disagree with the interpretations of the story that Shvaughn was an insecure person or had low self esteem. All people have periods of insecurity in their lives. This story showed a person going through one of those periods. It was the middle of a war. It was the during Earth's final tragic war. A woman was losing the identity she had grown comfortable with. She was fearful of losing the man she loved. Any drug that can do what Profem did obviously effected hormones. It seems natural that she would be emotional while going through the transformation. I believe the story also indicated that there was some physical pain involved. The story showed Shvaughn going through a bad time, feeling insecure, and being overcome with emotion because of what she was going through. It doesn't erase any of her earlier appearances. The Shvaughn we knew was always fun, strong, competent and secure. This story didn't change any of that. It just showed the girl going through a bad patch.

Was she insecure as young man? Perhaps. Most of us go through periods of insecurity as adolescents. Perhaps the Profem helped her get through that, and helped her become the person she was comfortable being. She grew into the fun, competent, secure Shvaughn that we met during the Earthwar, and who came back even more self assured when Computo attacked.

If she truly took the Profem originally as part of a plan to get with Jan does that make her insecure? Does it make her codependent? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe it makes her a dreamer. Maybe it makes her a romantic. Maybe it makes her someone who isn't afraid to take risks to get what she wants. I'm not comfortable with equating Shvaughn taking Profem to her being insecure. Most real world, current day transexuals are perceived as being insecure too, I guess. That's never been my experience. Most of the transexual people I know are pretty damned sure of themselves. They really have to be in order to make the choices that they are making.

OK, I confess that I missed the "anything we ever shared physically" comment. They did have sex.

I will also agree with you, Jerry, that Tom and Mary's statement that Jan is gay carries a lot of weight. As a writer, I can attest that I create a lot of things for my characters that don't make it into the stories: background information, relationships, preferences, favorite colors. But it's all real to me, and it informs how the characters act and react. So, I take Tom and Mary at their word that Jan was gay.

I also have no problem believing that a gay man could be in a relationship with a woman for years. Based on Jan's statements, however, he always seemed to have qualms about the relationship, if for no other reason than he didn't need her as much as she needed him.

But as far as Shvaughn being insecure, my conclusion that she was is based on her own comments in the story and the letter to Gigi, including the passages I quoted above. Someone who is secure with themselves wouldn't spend 18 years living a lie. It's not so much that Sean changed his gender that matters; it's that he didn't tell anyone, not even his roommate and closest friend (Gigi) or lover (Jan). Jan says at the beginning of the story that he never really knew Shvaughn. How likely is it that this comment would be made about someone who is secure in himself or herself?

I agree that none of this takes away anything from Shvaughn in any of her previous appearances. A person can be very brave in some areas of their lives but insecure in others. Much has been made in the news lately of war veterans dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and being afraid of coming forth due to a military culture that regards psychological problems as weakness. Having such problems or being afraid to seek help does not undermine their heroism.

But it can create problems in relationships, and we are seeing something similar in Sean's relationship with Jan. Sean was going through more than a bad patch here; his entire life was falling apart because he couldn't accept who he really was (and he continued to not accept this until accepting it was forced upon him by the absence of Profem). In the end, Sean concludes that Jan was right: Sean needed to stand on his own two feet.

And, honestly, I don't think that's a bad thing. In a series full of strong characters who overcame horrendous personal tragedies and faced danger on a daily basis, it's refreshing to see one character who is human enough to be insecure and admit it.

That's pretty much the major issue for me.

True...but I would imagine most of the closeted gays in hetero marriages probably want something different and don't consider that relationship to be "the one". If they stay it's out of doing what they consider to be the right thing in honoring their marriage vows or the mother of their children, or for their families or perhaps they could not envision themselves actually living a gay lifestyle...but whatever reason it is, it's not because they feel they are in "the" relationship and are seeking nothing else...if they did feel that way they wouldn't be gay.


Shvaughn was "the" relationship for Element Lad. He wasn't longing for something else, he wasn't staying with her because of any marriage vows or familial commitments. That was who he loved, that was who he wanted to spend the rest of his life, that was the perfect relationship for him. That was all he needed etc. And he thought she was female.

I think that is the flaw in the story...if Shvaughn's gender switch was reversed and Elad had been sleeping with a man for years in love, and he turned out to be a woman, I don't think we could consider Element Lad straight.


If Element Lad had reacted differently and been outraged at her for, oh say, playing games with his heart, or not trusting him, and never would trust her again...would you fault him for it? I wouldn't. I didn't fault him for not being angry...but I wouldn't have faulted him if he had been as well. It's a huge breach of trust and relationships are all about trust. At the least it was a setback.

Hell you'd think if he was gay and frustrated in a hetero relationship, at the least he'd be a little miffed at spending years in a hetero relationship when it wasn't necessary.

i don't really care to classify jan's sexuality. if you're dating a trans person, trying to label your affection for that person is tricky, some people just say that they're "trans" or "queer" as a generic umbrella term, but most people i've met just pick a word they're personally comfortable with. so, as jan himself never cared to label his relationship, i don't see the need to.

i thought this relationship was important/special not because it made a relationship "gay"/"homosexual", but because it introduced a transsexual character, something that is not very common in comics and this, in and of itself, is an incredible thing to me. i've had several trans friends in my life, and if you think gay people are underrepresented, trans people are even more so, the closest we usually get is with shapeshifters like cham, mystique, etc.

when i say "the legion has had gay characters", i was actually thinking primarily of violet and ayla, and Condo and Lyle. i'm actually very surprised that everyone is only considering/focusing on jan and shvaughn here.

condo and lyle's relationship is probably the saddest, most unfulfilled thing for me, something that only gained official status with the release of the 2003 DC encyclopedia, otherwise referred to obliquely. i never understood what stopped them from making this more plain in the story, as violet and ayla had already been written as gay characters a long time ago.

anyone have further info on this? why it didn't quite make itself visible?

Hmmm...I've read about that IK CK one before and while I could easily see CK as being gay...it doesn't work for me with Lyle...because he was shown to be in love with that girl in the ghost dimension.

The Lyle-Chem liaison was an invention of the reboot, I believe. Prior to that, they were merely described as friends. Retroactively, in a SECRET ORIGINS story, Lyle became Chem's mentor who helped him control his powers before Chem joined the Legion.

And yes, Lyle fell in love with Myla, who revealed herself to be a ghost who would take care of him for all eternity. This doesn't rule out him being bisexual, but it does give his story a happy ending.

yes yes, i'm referring to reboot lyle/condo, where it looks like condo is a cradle robbing news reporter.

keep in mind, "gay" and "straight" are generalizations of preferences A gay person can potentially be attracted to/love someone of the opposite sex and a straight person can similarly have same-sex feelings.

People are people, not labels. Feelings do not necessarily fit into simple compartments, nor should they.

Okay, the word of the writers carries a lot of weight, but isn't it odd that they have to clarify this outside the actual story rather than make it crystal clear within the story itself? I mean, is it good enough that we know Jim Shooter made it known in an interview that he intended one of his Harbinger characters to be gay when that never materialized in the actual comic?

I mean, the fact is that there is some ambiguity in the "Elements of Heartbreak" story itself as to Jan's sexual preferences. The fact that I (and others) can interpret it one way and support it and that Jerry (and others) can interpret it another way and back that up seems to prove my point. If Tom and Mary wanted to, they could have had Jan say something more specific like, "Sean, I loved you in spite of the fact you were a woman. It was difficult to get past that because I've always been attracted to men. How ironic is it that you were really a man all along..." That wouldn't have been ambiguous at all.

But if we're focussing on the intent of the writers, what about Paul Levitz? He created Shvaughn and was the first to give Jan a deep, meaningful relationship with his creation. Do we discount his intention? Does anyone doubt that Paul intended for Shvaughn to be a woman and that Jan was heterosexual? Paul gave both of them considerable "screen time" as a couple and worked very hard to show its depth. Yeah, it went against fan speculation about Jan particularly, but does that make Levitz wrong?

My interpretation of "Elements of Heartbreak" honors noth Levitz's work and what the Bierbaums put in their script, I feel. To say that Jan didn't care about the sex of his lover just feels right to me. It's not that I'm railing against a character being gay--I'd really, REALLY like to see more of that in comics--but I feel that classifying this particular character as simply being "gay" is just too limiting, given what we know about Jan, the trauma he's been through, his spiritual beliefs and the nature of his power.

And I do appreciate what Jerry said about how men can be gay but still stay in heterosexual relationships, but why should this apply to Jan? Given what evidence is used for this side of the argument from the story in question, the scenario appears to be: Jan was always gay as he never had a girlfriend before Shvaughn. But Shvaughn was persistent, so he gave in and started dating her. He fell in love with her despite her being a woman and stayed in the relationship until her neediness drove him away, not because he couldn't deal with her not being a man.

If he knew he was gay all along (remember, this is based on the "...in SPITE of..." quote), isn't this incredibly unlikely? The only reasons I can think that he would enter a relationship with her are that a) he'd been unable or too shy to find the right man, b) he was afraid of being openly gay or c) he felt an obligation to procreate as the last of his species.

Those just don't work for me as pertains to Jan. a) I don't see why Jan would just "settle" for someone, b) Jan's got no relatives left to upset and no evidence was given of an intolerant 31st century and c) he never expressed a burning need to procreate and seemed to find solace in his spirituality.

Really, Jan's relationship with Shvaughn was absolutely beautiful. I just don't see any evidence pre-"Elements of Heartbreak" that Shvaughn was anything other than Jan's 'One'. Problems eventually developed. But as He Who Wanders supports very effectively, Shvaughn's issues (which impacted the relationship, eventually) were not borne from simply being transgender but from her secrecy and utter fear of exposing it. Keeping that kind of secret that long and living in fear because of it could kill any relationship.

So writer intent does matter, but it's ultimately what's put on the page that makes the impression. And I say that what Levitz and the Bierbaums put on the page supports my assertion that sexual preference was not important to Jan Arrah more logically and seamlessly than the assertion that he was just gay.

I don't even remember Chemical King being in the reboot...

I'm not trying to throw labels on anyone really..but since we are discussing which label would apply, I'm just trying to stick to the usual definitions. Besides...between gay, bisexual and straight we pretty much have everything covered right? If someone is open to a realtionship with both I'd think that makes them bisexual...not gay, not straight.

he was! he wasn't even called chemical king though! he was a news reporter, going by condo arlik. when lyle's voted leader, he meets condo when he's giving na interview about... something. on one of those 'day off' issues lyle goes on a date with someone off camera. (he gets a note saying "can't wait to see you -c"). Coming back to hq after the date he thoughtbubbles something to the effect that he's glad they could pick their relationship back up and maybe after he resigns as leader they'll have more time together. A lot of fans were thinking it was condo and that maybe condo's powers would manifest but it got dropped. later in interviews, writers confirmed that it was condo and in the encyclopedia condo's description mentions that he was in a relationship with lyle.

see, i will buy something said by writers afterwards if it turns up SOMEWHERE in print (like the encyclopedia). but shooter has a history of going "bob in panel 3 is gay. you just can't tell. also, ferro lad is black." i just don't buy it. especially when he has had so many opportunities to just...make it happen and then...doesn't. or even DROP HINTS. the hints that hallmark such things are not there so, no dice, shooter

another thing from the reboot, querl totally kissed lyle on the cheek when he returns from a particularly harrowing mission: scans

i really liked this. if it meant querl had a crush on lyle? that's great. but you know i'd also be happy with it meaning "querl and lyle are good friends, everyone's comfortable enough with their own sexuality and gayness to not bat an eyelash at a guy kissing another on the cheek". either of these interpretations make me happy because it represents a universe that isn't homophobic in nature. waid, i feel, gave a nod to this by the mention of gim's brother being gay. again, it went wholly without comment because NO ONE CARED!

waid's relationships seemed very muted and playing second fiddle to the overall plots. By contrast, shooter's run seems very focused on who's sleeping with who, who's marrying who, who has a crush on who. and i'd be fine with that, honestly, i love a cute romantic story, but it's all heterosexual, heterocentric and gross or creepy or nonsensical or some combination of these.

let's put it this way, his women behave so nonsensically, with over-the-top libidos and dramatic over reactions that in the latest issue, readers are unclear whether a girl being attracted to Jo is Shooter writing a professional female cop as being an idiot or if Jo is somehow making ladies fall in love with him, because with shooter at the helm, either is possible.

i'm not even asking for gay couples, i'm just asking for some textual awareness that gay exists in the future