Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion Animism

Timber Wolf, Dawnstar, Tellus, Catspaw, Gates, Sensor, Shikari.

Evolvo Lad's apeform, Polecat, Tusker, Wild Huntsman, Ornitho/Aviax, Porcupine Pete, H'Hrnath, Ze Tongue.

Animal Lad, Beast Boy, Hunter I, Hunter II, Jungle King.

Beppo the Supermonkey, Comet the Superhorse, Krypto the Superdog, Streaky the Supercat.

Non-standard-humanoid forms, yes, for all these sentients. And they're to be expected in a diverse (and realistic, and interestingly portrayed) galactic civilization. Taking note of it is aniMALism, perhaps, if we're humanoid-ist.

How, though, does their presence show "animism"? That religious view involves seeing signs of gods or of the supernatural in every moving and living being. For some, in plants and in natural inorganic motion as well.

Dawnstar came closest, with her Indian-generic "Great Spirit" beliefs, but even that was not quite animism. (It was, though, one of the few frequent mentions of religion for any Legion character.)

Aren't 'metahumans' and 'superheroes' just the gods of the 20th-21st centuries? And yes these beastlike metas make me think of Aegyptian animism.

Perhaps Legion Animalism would have made a better title.

Why are animals so prominent in Legion lore? You don't really find its equivalent in any other franchise - JSA, JLA, Titans, FF, Avengers, X-Men, etc. Well I suppose of all the franchises I just mentioned, the X-Men come closest with some beastlike mutant forms.

Why so many animal types in the Legion? One thing may be the very large cast of characters, so just on a percentage basis, we get more animal characters - although this logic might also suggest more of everything - more purple-skinned characters, more blonde characters, etc. - although I'm not sure that's the case. We probably wouldn't get more magic-based characters, since Legion has tended to operate in a sci-fi context, with magic making only an occasional appearance.

I suspect the main reason could be the effort to introduce likeable alien characters, or at least aliens with some connection to our present world.

Animals are easy to understand, their "powers" are within our mental grasp and don't require a lot of thinking through - compare Kid Quantum's quantum powers (still unclear for many of us) to Timber Wolf's "dog" powers. The writers don't have to spell out Brin's capabilities - if he has super hearing and smelling/tracking abilities, we're not surprised, we know that's what wolves can do. But quantum energy? We need the writers to close the loop, define the powers and the limits - which I don't think DnA did in KQ's case.

Even the alien, unknown animals/animal characters have some grounding in our reality. Tellus looks strange, but he can swim. We're not sure exactly what Gates is, but when he's called "a bug", no one is surprised. Jiminy Cricket talked, why not Gates? We grew up with this stuff. The lightning beasts of Korbal look like some Earth beasts, even if their powers are unkown to us. Quislet was hard to understand, as a being, but he talked like an impish cartoon character, something with which we are familiar.

There is a book, Evolving the Alien by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, which discusses how aliens have been developed in literature and film, how/why some succeed and the science behind them.

Two quotes from the book: "We argue that many [aliens] are rooted in the nursery tales examined by Shepard in Thinking Animals, or the supernatural myth-creatures of other cultures, from which they have often metamorphosed by adoption into western folk tales or even the serious theatre. Some of the aliens that our race has invented relate to more biological phobias, like our irrational fears of spiders, mice or non-poisonous snakes. Many of the odd-but-iconic 'aliens' that we know and love (or hate, or fear) and their odd-but-iconic behaviour come straight out of our own psyches. Understanding these origins will enable us to distinguish icon from reality , and be more objective about real alien biology."

"The Star Wars bar-scene aliens are all human cultural icons - snake, owl, fox - straight out of the Shepard nursery lexicon or the American tales of Br'er Rabbit. Perhaps we should say that these images were well chosen to elicit our western responses: 'wise' for the owly ones, 'sly' for the fox, and 'ugh' for the snake - with overtones of Biblical evil."

(I'll add that the authors point out that these characteristics are based on western cultural icons - the perceived attributes of animals vary from culture to culture.)

I greatly appreciate those insights, Cramey. I especially find the Adventure-era interesting in Legion lore because of its successive animal-themed foes: Hunter, Jungle King, Beast Boy, Lone Wolf, etc.

Futuristic civilization repeatedly threatened by primal animalism.

The book sounds well worth the read. More fables & folklore in Legion tales!