Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Get Rid of the Boy/Girl/Lad/Lass Now!!

These are Adults not Children!!!

Completely disagree!

Me too. This is an essential part of the Legion's charm that separates the series from the X's and the X wannabes.

Nah ... it's too soon to get rid of the "Boy/Girl/Lad/Lass" parts of the Legionnaires' codenames.

I realize that almost all of them are now full out adults but to change character code names now would be creative suicide to the contemporary new readers as well as us veterans.

Maybe Levitz will do a special story in the new book which could help clear up the actual ages of all the Legionnaires?

I agree with the disagree-ers! The Lad/Lass/Kid/Boy/etc names are as much a part of the Legion as the 31st Century setting IMO.

And what would they be changed to anyway? We've already been through the Reboot where there was a mixed bag of successful and unsuccessful changes and none of them were as impactful or had the staying power of the original names anyway.

And just upgrading them to Cosmic Man or Lightning Man or whatever is no way an acceptable substitute. I hate the Adult Legion names with a passion.

The writers (and readers) needs to quit trying to fix what ain't broke with the Legion and just give us good stories with the team as they are!

I enjoy the code-names... what IS kind-of bugging me though is that now there's a few "fill in blank"-MAN characters on the team with lots of boys, girls and damsels and kids.

^ Totally agree. Though isn't Star MAN the only one? As soon as he returns to the Legion he needs to go by Star BOY again. I cannot handle having him as a MAN while everyone else is still BOY or GIRL or whatever.

Wait - I just remembered Earth MAN. Eh - hopefully he won't last long. Is there anyone else?

Superman, but I can let that one slide...

^ Yep - I think it would be a lonely battle trying to get DC to revert his name back to BOY just to keep him consistent with his Legion comrades.

It would've actually made a lot of sense to change them to Man/Woman, etc. when they "reintroduced" the team as Superman's contemporaries. I'm not sure I'd want to see them switching right now, however.

I think Thom will revert back to his old nom de guerre once he gets back on his meds.

The name "Earth-Man" is an offensive reminder of his racist crimes, so it would be politic of him to look at using Absorbancy Boy, Green Lantern, or something else expressing the combination of his abilities and/or his new alignment.

"Cosmic Man" simply lacks charm. I do not welcome it.

I'm not sure they are his contemporaries though (in age I'm assuming you mean).

Frank and Perez definitely drew them all as slightly shorter and younger-looking than Kal in Action Comics and Lo3W.

If Superman is in his late-30s (I think that's his default DC age) then the Legion all look to be about mid-20s to me (similar to their ages in the Baxter era).

That's still enough of an age difference for them to get away with BOY/GIRL/etc codenames while he uses MAN. IMO.

I thought they'd reverted Superman to the "about 30" zone (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I thought Johns or somebody had said that). And the Legion would be about the same, assuming their timeline works the way it did pre-Crisis (one leadership term = one year).

Ah who knows?

Ages in comics =

Answer this question. Are they children? teen-agers? or Adulsts?

Young adults.

someone ask Paul Levitz on facebook!

Friend of mine is 28 years old. We all call him Junior.

Couple friends of mine are often referred to as The Boys.

I'm ok with Ladd/Lass/Damsel

I always imagined the team as college-aged young adults and therefore had no problem with their names. It's just another aspect of what made them unique.

Believe it or not, I'm pretty indifferent on this front. I'm okay with the suffixes or without them.

I used to agree, BB. But for now, I'm content to let it be.

In the 31st, human lifespans could be around 200 years, for all we know. They might have a different cultural use of words like Boy and Girl, etc. mid- or late-20-somethings (or even older) could be in that grey area that equates to late tens in our era.

I'd favor a slow transition. Starman and Superman are first, fine. Maybe one now and then, starting a couple years from now -when/if there's reason to switch. Definitely not a whole big bunch at once.

It could be that "boy", "girl", etc. actually just translate Interlac words that are much broader in scope than what we use to render them in English...

I wouldn't want Boy George to start calling himself "Man George".
And he's like, 80 or some junk!!

Hmm... this could easily inspire a "Ways the Legion is like the Culture Club" thread...

It wouldn't be the Legion without some boys, girls, lads and lasses. I look on it as a comfort thing for the members of the team. They've used those code names for years and probably don't see any reason yet to change them. The code names are as much their names as their given names.