Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes All The Things That Do Not Happen In This Legion

Many things do not happen in this retroboot version of my dear Legion Of Super-Heroes.
Some reasons it owes to that she does not like to write Paul Levitz on certain prominent figures.

01 - Matter Eater Lad is out, because he cannot apply like the power of this heroe, thing that Giffen or the Bierbaum did of marvel.

02 - He let out of the core team three fundamental members in the history of the group in the academy. (Duplicate Girl, Bouncing Boy, Night Girl)
When now it is that Luornu has more power that never.

03 - He repeats itself again and not for which I motivate in the momentary or definitive retirement of important characters like Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Sensor Girl, Black Witch, Blok and XS.

04 - A constant use and up to improper of some members (Brainiac 5, Timber Wolf, Ultra Boy), while others only appear as secondary cast (Invisible Kid II, Element Lad, Polar Boy, Quislet)

05 - The girls are being ignored without mercy.
Saturn Girl, Sensor Girl, Night Girl, Duplicate Girl are out of the core team.
Shriking Violet Violet has seen in the annual but very little in the principal title.

06 - Still I am hoping that it begins the saga searching to Karate Kid...

07 - And now new members who do not contribute anything to the group.(Dragonwind, Glorith)
Only Chemical Kid is saved from the burning, in honoring to Condo.

How many female Legionnaires are left in the current team?

Phantom Girl
Shadow Lass
Lightning Lass
Shrinking Violet
Dream Girl

+ Chameleon Girl and Dawnstar in Legion Lost.

Wow, that is a serious lack of females.

To be fair, Chuck & Luornu have been off the team for quite a while. Cary Bates first wrote them out of the Legion when he married them. So although Paul Levitz does not have them (and Night Girl) on the team, he has been using them in the Academy story in Adventure.

Adding Dragonwing and Glorith after September will provide a better balance, but we haven't seen too much of the other females in action so far. Or maybe it just seems that way; I'd have to do a panel count (too lazy!).

I'll wait in September the return of Saturn Girl, Sensor Girl , XS , Night Girl and Duplicate Girl in the core team.
Maybe ,sometimes Supergirl and Black Witch.
For me, and it's personal...the writers can kill Dragonwing and Glorith.
Lamprey and Nightwind were deserved more the legion membership.
Without counting the versions of this continuity of Kinetix, Kid Quantum II or Quantum Queen, Veilmist, Andromeda and Insect Queen.

Don't even get me started. Especially given that we've already seen DC's own spoiler (apparently) for the 2nd issue of the (yet again) "New" LSH.

[snip]

It should not be necessary to kill new characters so that old characters can get some attention.

Honestly, the Big Two seem to think that killing characters right and left makes them look cool. It just makes me think that they don't have confidence in their own creative staff. Is it really so hard to tell a good, dramatic tale without bodies being stacked up right and left?

(I felt the same way when Titan's colony blew up in the first issue. Even though we knew very little about the place and its people before they went "Boom!")

I don't think there's anything wrong with Nightwind or Lamprey as characters. However, Legion writers have heard for years the charge that the team's history is too convoluted and confusing for new readers to jump aboard easily. Levitz may have decided that new characters would be a good idea, simply because an interested reader who came on board in the last year or two would not feel confused. They would not feel required to go and buy 20-30 years of earlier stories to read everything about these particular characters. (That is: Glorith and Dragonwing.)

I'm not saying I agree with this approach, but I can see why Levitz might have chosen it.

Interesting, and I agree with you, cleome. Perhaps Levitz wanted to write some stories with the perspective of real newbies whom he felt new readers could relate with.

It's just too bad that Nightwind and Lamprey could have served as vehicles for that too! Ah well, their time will come eventually...

On the new Academy students vs old Academy students: I see the reasoning, but honestly, how often have most of the old-school Academy students actually appeared in stories, and how much development have all of them had over the years anyway? You could still treat them with the perspective of new characters for anyone unfamiliar with Legion history because anyone unfamiliar with Legion history would probably have no idea that they are pre-existing characters to begin with.

On the destruction of Titan: I can't help but compare it really unfavourably to the destruction of the moon (and later Earth) in the 5YL series. Those events felt really important and you really had the sense that the loss of those places made an impact on the Legion's universe. By comparison, the destruction of Titan is purely a plot element and nothing more. We needed it to introduce Harmonia Li, and we've seen Titanian refugees being moved around a fair bit, but what effect has it had on the UP culturally that its most famous world of telepaths no longer exists? What effect has it had on Saturn Girl, or for that matter Lightning Lad and their kids? I know people feel that the founders are over-exposed, but really this is one story which is begging for a focus on Imra, and she was shipped off the team as soon as it happened...even WHILE it was happening she was more preoccupied with her kids being abducted, so we still haven't really seen any kind of meaningful reaction from her, and at this point the horse has kinda bolted on that one...

On the lack of Legion ladies: I don't recall Vi doing anything at all so far outside of the annual. Until the current storyline, Tinya hadn't done anything useful either. Shady has only been a liability in combat. Yeah, Paul has not been kind to them so far for the most part.

At least Dragonwing has a power and a personality which is a lot more aggressive than most of the other Legionnaire women, so hopefully that will be rectified in the relaunch. I am also hoping that Tellus being with the Legion Lost team might mean we will see Imra come back as an active member in the 31st century team. She at least is always treated as being capable and powerful.

It is interesting to note how many new female characters were brought into each incarnation of the Legion.

In the "original" Legion, up to the 5-year-gap, we had 9 to 11 female members, depending on how you count:
Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl, Supergirl , Shrinking Violet, Lightning Lass, Dream Girl , Princess Projectra, Shadow Lass , the White Witch, and possibly Quislet and Tellus, who are of indeterminate gender.

Although never actually seen in action, the following four are said to have been admitted during the "5-Year-Gap":
Infectious Lass, Night Girl, NightWind, and Lamprey

During 5YL, we had the following 7 also introduced as Legionnaires:
Laurel Gand , Kono , Celeste, Veilmist , Spider Girl, CatsPaw, and Computo (Danielle Foccart).

So in 5YG and 5YL, as many female Legionnaires were introduced or admitted as in the entire previous 30 years

In the "Reboot", we have the following new characters:
XS , Kinetix , Inferno (Sandy Anderson) , Kid Quantum II , Thunder , Shikari, a new Insect Queen, and Sensor the Snake (who I count as a separate character) most of whom were ill-treated by subsequent authors.

In the "Threeboot", there was Gazelle and Sizzle; Theena, if she was not strictly a Legionnaire, should have been.

In the current "Retroboot" Chameleon Girl has been introduced as a Legionnaire, and DragonWing and Glorith seem to be being set up to become part of the team.

I think fans often forget that the Legion line-up was generally only about one-third female at any one time during most of the pre-5YG era. Seven members on the team is pretty consistent with that, though one might wish for a better ration in this day and age.

There was actually a brief period of time during the reboot where there were more female members than males.

I wouldn't have a problem with that at all. I'm not even sure that the woe about Legion history being too confusing for newcomers even matters in the age of Wikipedia. I was just trying to determine why DC might have decided to introduce new characters.

There's also always the outside chance that they had some other plans for Lamprey and Nightwind in later stories that necessitate not having them on the team. We just don't know.

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On the destruction of Titan: I can't help but compare it really unfavourably to the destruction of the moon (and later Earth) in the 5YL series. Those events felt really important and you really had the sense that the loss of those places made an impact on the Legion's universe. By comparison, the destruction of Titan is purely a plot element and nothing more. We needed it to introduce Harmonia Li, and we've seen Titanian refugees being moved around a fair bit, but what effect has it had on the UP culturally that its most famous world of telepaths no longer exists? What effect has it had on Saturn Girl, or for that matter Lightning Lad and their kids? I know people feel that the founders are over-exposed, but really this is one story which is begging for a focus on Imra, and she was shipped off the team as soon as it happened...even WHILE it was happening she was more preoccupied with her kids being abducted, so we still haven't really seen any kind of meaningful reaction from her, and at this point the horse has kinda bolted on that one...

I'm still hopeful that we'll see some of this followed up on. Especially since a year in our time is likely not very much time at all in the actual story. I feel like a lot of story that could have followed up on it was given over to the whole Earth Man-Green Lantern biz. Which doesn't interest me nearly as much.

I believe the Threeboot also had a nearly equal balance between the sexes.

And I think we would not have minded so much if the team had started out with few females, but to have so many resign/retire is sure to raise some complaints.

Still, I think cleome and Quis have good points here. Sensor Girl and Black Witch will most likely have their plotlines feature prominently later on; Saturn Girl is only on leave; Night Girl and Duplicate Damsel are still being featured prominently; XS' disappearance is editorially mandated. Hopefully it won't take long for some of them to return to active duty.

Maybe someone else thought of this in another thread somewhere, but the destruction of Titan echoes many incidents in sci-fi entertainment, (Alderaan comes to mind), but it seems to me the most recent destruction that may have influenced it is the destruction of Vulcan in the Star Trek reboot.