Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Which Legionnaires do you think got ruined during Levitz' run on SLH?

Most of the members mentioned in this thread were my favorites of the Levitz run. To each his own and all that. And there sure are a ton of Levitz fans out there.

It's interesting that no one has mentioned Tinya.

No. I meant that ref. about "...wish he had tried to make lemonade out of the lemons that surrounded Tyroc."? What does it mean? You're not one of those Tyroc haters, aren't you?

(After all, Tyroc wasn't bigoted. He solely acted that way he did, because he thought the entire universe was populated by afro-american-hating parasites, and he WAS the only champion Marzal had to defend them...)

Good points, Guys.

Well, in some cases (most notably, Dream Girl, whose characterization was simply a stroke of genius; especially seeing how she had allways been used solely as either a third-class plot device, or Star Boy's token girl-friend).

But, in Timber Wolf's case especially, there was no "character growing". His personality got utterly RAPED, resulting in Brin becoming the least sympathic of all Legionnaires, far, far worse the Wildfire was on his worst days.

Brin was seldomly shown on panel before Levitz: even Vi got more spotlight then Brin.

But he HAD a fully rounded personality. He was, on the one hand, very laid-back and quit.
On the other hand, we knew that he didn't care for decadence (much like Karate Kid), he sometimes felt insecure because of his morbid past, and that he could explode into dangerous rages, whenever somebody hurt his friends (especially Ayla) in front of his eyes.

Ah, so true. Especially that part about Invisible Kid II...

Can we debate that?

About Dream Girl: I don't know about that. Remember how she was allways depicted as some cypher? In THAT case, at least, Levitz actually FIXED her-- and gave her one of the strongest, most unforgettable charactizations ever.

About Ayla: Well, I truly HATE what Levitz did to Brin, Imra & Ayla with that particular story-line. I also think Light Lass was vastly overreacting when she "caught" Brin doing nothing more then comforting Saturn Girl, and getting hysterical because of it, and finally leaving both Brin and the Legion over it.

Up to this point, I think Timber Wolf was in the right.

But in later stories, Brin was being consistently depicted as the Legion's resident creep, so why should Ayla even WANT to bother with him? Also, in a later story, Ayla made a strong case about how, while she loves Brin, she can't start a new relationship with him, since he left her down the one time she needed him, after all the time SHE was there for him.

So it's not as if Light Lass' leaving Brin was character-raping: she acted like you'd expect somebody to act in that situation.

Frankly, if I was female (or otherwise in love with Brin), I'd leave him too, after all those artifical character faults heaped uppon him by Levitz...

About Shadow Lass:Oh, I think the early Giffen/Baum team did even worse to Shaddy, with all of that "Ooooooo, Gar, I love you*can't LIVE without you*My DarlingMon*My life solely resolves about YOU*Please don't leave me AGAIN!!!*Without YOU, Lar, I am less then nothing" crap...

Timber Wolf, as written by Levitz, and "charme"? Isn't hat kinda mutually exclusive???
Arachne, are you serious?

And Ayla had - from her point of view - VERY GOOD CAUSE to not wanting to have anything to do with her former lover...

Exactly. Nice to see that I'm not the only one who thinks Ayla was being hysterical at that particular occasion.

Hmm, I can see how "charm" does imply a certain amount of intelect that was clearly lacking. Let's try this again.

I'm talking about a kind of innocent, boyish charm, not the swauve intelectual kind. When he was away from Ayla (you know, she needs a nasty nickname, Imra's got two surely Ayla deserves at least one), he usually seemed to be lighthearted and maybe a bit mischievious. I'm thinking mainly of the time he made Dawnstar laugh, not many did that.

Do you have examples of him acting like a creep? All I can think of is that he hired a detective to keep and eye on Ayla. That's certainly in violation of her rights, but if it was just to make sure she was safe, it's not all that bad. Of course, my collections not complete, so I could be missing a lot.

When it comes to dissing Brin, I don't think Levitz has anything on Giffen. I mean c'mon, Furball? Drinking out of the toilet?? Eww.

Nasty nickname for Ayla? Let's call her Slappy.

I think Duo Damsel suffered the most during Levitz's second run - after her second body was killed by the Time Trapper it left her in a real state of confusion.

You would assume, given her origin, that she would either be shunned by her fellow Carggians for not having two other bodies or else she would simply cease to exist after a few days of being a single, virtually powerless entity.

Not even Brainy's gift of a force-shield belt would have been enough...Altho, had he given the belt to her BEFORE the Time Trapper assault...oh well, Levitz must have concocted his "useless character hit list" long before then...

Looking back, it seems like Levitz really wanted to humanize our Legionnaires, perhaps to emphasize that there was a heroic quality to the team that was more than the sum of it's parts. That is perhaps a good approach to the material, but he often seemed to go too far. Levitz was GREAT at getting across a decent amount of characterization in a short set of panels, a seeming must for an effective Legion writer. Some kinds of character arcs may not lend themselves to that format. Lightening Lad's breakdown, for instance. Even the most heroic among us can snap, given the right set of triggers. If Levitz had portrayed that in a more realistic way, it would have been a powerful story cycle about a hero losing, than regaining his confidence. Instead, it came across too much as a typical soap-opera like character turn. Having said all this, I loved the Levitz Legion and am happy to hold forth many of its tales as the finest of the lot. But it is interesting to realize how hard it was to salvage a lot of these characters after Levitz was done with them. It seems like the best writers can't resist destroying the great characters and themes they themselves have created. See Claremont, Chris and now, sadly, Johns, Geoff.

"It seems like the best writers can't resist destroying the great characters and themes they themselves have created."

I really hate that...


My first exposure to Ayla was her Light Lass persona during Levitz' 1st run and after, when she came across as a really sweet, nice, fun-loving person. Dumping all that ANGST!!! on her early in his 2nd run, I never really got to like her much after that for a long, long time... UNTIL the reboot, when she suddenly became this very nice, friendly, SMART girl, who, while few seemed to notice it, was the first one to become friends with Brainiac 5. It still boggles my mind that NOBODY ever followed up on that... it was such a "natural" relationship to develop, and it never did.


Early in the Levitz-Giffen run, I heard from someone working at DC that Keith Giffen (who was adding a TON of his own ideas to the mix virtually every issue) had a PERSONAL vendetta against Jim Shooter (perhaps Shooter had been instrumental in having him FIRED from THE DEFENDERS years before??). Giffen had apparently said that before he was through, he was going to get rid of EVERY character Shooter had created. Sure enough, although it took some time, in his last issue of that run, he KILLED Karate Kid.

I often like to quip that Giffen may be the ONLY artist I know who often appears on fans' "favorites" lists and "most hated" lists at the same time!

Mr. Giffen is one of those artist/writers who says he loves the Legion. I would hope he wouldn't go after Jim Shooter-created characters for some sort of revenge. That would be pretty sad. KK hopefully was just the tragic hero in a good story.

That said, TMK is TOTALLY to blame for the greatest characterization carnage the Legion has had in its history. Anyone complaining about the numerous Legion reboots (and I'm one of those) can point directly at the 5 year gap version, which so twisted and perverted most of the Legionnaires it has still never recovered, and resulted in the reboot attempts to start over. Mr Giffen almost loved our Legion to cancellation death.

By-the-by, I think Mr. Levitz was attempting to give each Legionnaire some separation by stories which gave various members some personal challenges to go along with the team's adversity. This was an extension of Mr. Shooter's work of making the characters more 'hip', and I think it was successful. The stories read like an OC of the eighties, trendsetting and popular, and an enormous undertaking for such a large group.

This statement really sums up my feelings on this issue. Well said, doublechinner!

Thought I'd mention Cham. Don't forget that Levitz had him become a political criminal, ruining his reputation and further tarnishing the trust in Durlans.

Ah, now I see. And in that Legion special from TwoMorrows, Levitz admitted he thought Tyroc's powers - them being sound-based- were "silly" too, considering the fact that he appeared in a sound-less comic book.

I allways thought this was a lame excuse, since the Black Canary is also sound-based, but SHE became something of a fan favorite.

But at least he DID introduce positive, level-headed "ethnic" characters, even if I can't STAND the second Invisible Kid, and hated him from that anual on...

Well, that detective scenario is also the very first example, which springs to my mind. But Brin did far worse then merely making sure she was all right: he tryed to pass himself off as having searched for her all the time because he loved her, tried to pretend a love and commitment to her he clearly didn't feel at the time.

He clearly was being dishonest and even a bit manipulative to her-- and in a very calculating way, too. He had it all planned out, that one:there's that instable Lightning Lass, all in tears, and after Brin PAYD somebody else to find her for him, rather then going searching for her himself, he'd walk in, proclaiming his "love" for Ayla, the big, strong boy-friend come to "rescue" her, all the while hoping that Ayla was really NAIVE enough to swallow the bait.
How is that not being a creep?
What he planned to do in that scenario was far worse then him innocently comforting a stressed-out Imra. And, IMHO, even if he'd actually have made love to Imra - by accident, not because he wanted to cold-bloody cheat on Light Lass, that detective scenario would STILL be the worse part of the two offenses, since in that case Brin was clearly trying to lie to Ayla, and manipulate her with false pretenses. It seems inocent enough, on the surface-- but, frankly, it's not too much better then beating Ayla in a fit.

Basically, he seemed more concerned with Ayla resuming her place as his girl-friend then he was with Ayla's well-being.

Or, how about the time Brin went snide on Cham because he had a mental problem (sort of), and infiltrated Khund space? Cham obviously had his share of problems even without the pending jail punishment.

But that didn't stop Brin of snarling at Cham, hmm? (Or just about anybody else, for that matter. He was worse then Wildfire, in that regard.)

Honestly, at this point, calling Saturn Girl a shameless hussy is just something I do. But you know that!

Hmmm...more Levitz-bashing than I ever expected to see here!

I think you can make a general case that Levtiz did NOT write great interpersonal relationships. There's not a Legion romance from his tenure that isn't a little silly and juvenile. Shady worshipping Mon (the "Mon dies" storyline made me ill with the tears, and hysterics, and...), Star Boy: King P-Whipped, Ayla's somewhat inexplicable ultimatum to Brin, etc. A lot of the complaints above can be traced to such silliness.

Re: Tyroc. He DOES have a stupid power. And he DOES have a borderline offensive origin. And he DID wear chest chains and Peter Pan booties. I remain convinced the only reason anyone remembers him is because he went away so quickly.

Speaking only for myself, it wasn't my intention to bash. It's important to have threads like this that challenge conventional thinking about Legion creators. Levitz's contributions were vastly important - no one will deny that - but I think there's far too much Levitz worshipping that ignores his very obvious faults as a writer. He tried to push the envelope with the characters by giving them complexity and gravitas they never had before. He succeeded brilliantly with some of them but unfortunately mishandled (imho) and stigmatized others. Some people will contend that his stories were worth the damage he inflicted, but I think this thread makes a good case that some of his ideas (the asteroid story and its aftermath) were not only badly executed, but contained such inexplicable and unpleasant characterizations they still leave a bad aftertaste today.