Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #1 - Preview and Spoilers

And even Iceman recently (relative to his long history) came out of the closet.

And let's not forgot Iceman was revealed as gay in a book Bendis wrote... where Bobby got outed by Jean Grey who was like "oh honey of course you're gay" with absolutely no consideration to his feelings on making a private matter public.

...or fridge in that case.

Generally speaking I think it works better to add new characters or work to make existing non-white characters more prominent than to radically change the designs of classic Legionnaires. I mean, subtly darkening the skin of Cosmic Boy, or making Ferro Lad black as he was originally intended to be, or consistently drawing Karate Kid as half-Japanese as he was originally intended to be (and I still don't get why the current version seems to have randomly adopted a Chinese aesthetic) all seem feasible, but taking pale ginger characters like the lightning twins and making them black, or replacing Projectra with a giant snake, just doesn't seem to work as well, imo. That said, bring on the alternate reality in which all of the Legionnaires are gender-reversed or apelike beings or whatever and I'm all for it, I'm just not sure I want that to be the *standard* Legion that I'm reading about every month.

It always feels like an afterthought at this point when they try that, because they think simply changing the ethnicities or skin color of a character is enough to make a work more diverse. Yet they don't do any actual research or reach out to find sensitivity readers to make sure the characters don't become racist caricatures before the books are published. They think just the very fact a character now LOOKS Black or Japanese or Cambodian or Indian or Indigenous marks off a section of their "Enlightened Culturally Sensitive White Person" bingo card.

Take a look at how poorly constructed Wally West's New 52 identity was in the Flash volumes. Beyond the fact they stripped Wally of everything that made him unique and important, they also turned him into an angry, maladjusted delinquent Black kid with no parental guidance and put him under the "care and attention" of the well meaning Barry Allen, the whitest white guy DC probably has at this point. I swear to Christ that man's the equivalent of a piece of white bread shoved into a jar of mayo and drowned in whole milk. And at no point did anyone stop to think this might actually look bad.

Even now DC's still doing this outside the Legion. Their Future State books recently introduced a new speedster named Bolt who'll be in the Teen Titans Academy book. She's indigenous Australian and she has prosthetic legs... and apparently she also started out as a criminal as a teenager because her family were criminals too and she wanted to be better than that. And, like, I love her, but maybe they could've avoided having the dark-skinned character start out from a family of crooks and desiring to show she's not like her family? Like is that really the story that needs constant repeating with non-white characters?

It sometimes works better in AU stories because those tales REQUIRE you to do research as part of the world building.

I mean, I'm not saying I'M better than these people because God knows I've made prejudiced remarks in the past. I'm just saying when you're in an official position to create licensed content like Bendis is, make an actual effort instead of doing just enough to justify telling people you're open-minded.

Yeah, it's like there's probably a really interesting Elseworlds story to tell in which Kal-El is black, and one carefully explores the interestingly subtle and not-so-subtle differences in how the character would develop growing up as a black kid in rural Kansas, and the effect that would have on his life. What isn't as interesting is to just make him black and just pretend it doesn't make any difference, or to go to the other extreme and say, well, he's black, so let's give him the most stereotypical background of growing up in an inner city with a single mother instead of being raised by the Kents in Kansas.

It really annoys me when people try to defend Bendis's Legion just because he changed the ethnicities of some characters and then say detractors are against the book because it's "not for us." And it's like, do they even read the comics to see how Bendis portrays the Ranzz twins as Black?

It's the same nonsense with the people who tried to defend Heroes in Crisis by Tom King because he "intended" to portray PTSD and trauma in a superhero book when he really, really, REALLY failed at doing so.

Good intentions in these situations don't amount to jack, because someone else will have to come along to clean up this mess.

When Bendis randomly made Iceman gay, Sina Grace had to basically fix Bendis's damage by portraying Bobby Drake as actually struggling with his sexuality instead of acting like a stereotype and just before Marvel screwed him over he used his last chance to finally address how horrible it was for Bobby to have been outed and then forced back into the closet when the O5 X-Men returned to their own time.

When DC turned Wally West into a racist caricature, they screwed up so badly they couldn't simply make him white again so they had to make the original Wally a separate character and NuWally was just... an accident created by Flashpoint.

So who's gonna be expected to fix what Bendis did with these kids if they aren't simply erased?

Thank you EE!

Hey, so since Christmas I have been working on a Legion of Superheroes fan cast and I finally finished today, because it has a lot of photos I?m going to post it on tumblr in the morning and post the link to it somewhere here. Where do you suggest I post it, which thread/forum, or do I create me own? This is the first time I?ve done something like this on this site.

hi Ivy, definitely Bits, and I recommend creating your own thread Bits is for all sorts of fan creations, be they fiction or photos or more.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to draw the Legion as a combination of rejected Overwatch designs and bad EDM masks should please commit Sepuku. Now.

yeah, that was completely not ok. not sure how that was treated or if there was fallout, but that was super not ok.

Before Marvel finally pushed Sina Grace past his breaking point and he quit, his last Iceman story featured Bobby finally calling out Jean for the dick move she pulled.

Okay so I am writing an article about Legends of the Dead Earth and it's dawned on me that Bendis's not only trying to do FYL, but this whole thing is like an unnecessarily darker rip-off of Wildfire's story where he's trying to keep the Legion's name alive after the U.P. fell apart.

I VASTLY prefer Mike Collins' Legionnaires to Rossmo's.

I actually liked this issue, quite a bit. The Rossmo art was a big change from the preceding series, but on its own, it really grew on me and it's well suited to the mood. It doesn't hurt that I really enjoy post-apocalypse stories.

This felt like a much more complete, directed story than the previous 12 issues. Information was delivered succinctly. The focus was on a few, well-known Legionnaires. Many of them have changed appearances and have been emotionally affected by the Elemental event. Why and how some of those changes happened isn't entirely clear. There may be some inter-dimensional mix-up with animated Violet in the mix.

The scenes with Luornu and Blok were charming, moving and funny (when she dealt with Porcupine Pete). We got a different, edgier take on the Subs ; I especially loved Color Kid's visuals.

Garth got some spine, although he had to be bailed out by his spitfire sister and friends.

Jan's the god-like villain, again. Well, somebody had to be. It makes sense for an elemental event. It's almost not a Legion story unless Jan Arrah goes off the deep end.

The new Brainy didn't appeal to me, he seems a bit manic and just too strange. Bendis' version promised a more emotionally-balanced and human version of the character; this is more machine+Durlan, although his personality is engaging.

Unlike 5YL, these aren't tired, broken Legionnaires trying to get the mojo back. These guys only had 100 days as a team, yet are energized and committed to fixing/restoring the U.P..

that is really good to know, because what Jean did was so not okay!