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The Week in Gay Geek: The Legion canceled again, Jack Thompson's gayest hits and more!
THE LEGION CLOSES SHOP WITH NUMBER 50 IN YEAR 50: With an emphasis on diversity from its earliest days (though fifty years ago that diversity didn't look anything like it does today), a chosen family dynamic and strong iconic women (something still uncommon in superhero titles that don't get filed under 'X'), the Legion will probably always have a place in the hearts of gay superhero fans. Still, that hasn't stopped the franchise from seeing dwindling sales and enthusiasm. A Legion pin-up by gay artist Phil Jiminez There've been plenty of attempts made at failure analysis with the Legion: there's too much history for new readers to understand, fans are still divided over the abrupt change of the "five year gap" era, spin-off series like L.E.G.I.O.N. and Legionaries made things difficult for lapsed readers, weariness over having to emotionally connect with a new team every five years, etc. The new Legion of Super-Heroes 1989 and 1994 revamps: The franchise has also gone through various phases of gay inclusiveness. Paul Levitz set up the foundation for Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet's relationship, which had a prominent role when the series moved focus onto the adult lives of the Legionnaires. The series had a minor gay relationship when Shvaugn Erin turned out to be Sean and longtime boyfriend Element Lad didn't blink. When the series was restarted in the wake of Zero Hour, series creators revealed that one of the characters was conceived as gay from the beginning and eventually the title started dropping heavy hints about Lyle Norg, who appeared in a Secret Origins story that just overflowed with homoeroticsm. It turned out that Lyle was indeed meant to be gay, but when the series got a new editor attempts to out Lyle were stopped. The new Legion of Super-Heroes 1999 and 2005 revamps: The Legion currently is the focus of a Final Crisis tie-in miniseries, The Legion of 3 Worlds, which promises to end with just one incarnation of the team left standing. I'll certainly be interested in how that turns out and if any of the Legion's LGBT characters get another chance in the spotlight. It's a real shame that a franchise that connected so strongly with gay fans hasn't had any LGBT inclusiveness for over a decade. The overwhelming hoyay of Secret Origins #47 inspired I'm curious ... the Legion was once one of DC's top titles but it's had a major fall in the past couple decades. What's the team's biggest issue in your mind? More importantly, what does DC need to do to get the team back at the top? THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF DC FAILURE ANALYSIS: Minx's comics included works from creators with LGBT-inclusive histories While gay shoujo readers weren't the primary audience, I suspect we can diagnose Minx's problems just as well; did any of you ever sample any Minx graphic novels? I was always interested in the imprint, but every time I went to the bookstore I'd end up catching up on Beauty Pop or Absolute Boyfriend instead. Did any of you shoujo comic fans check out Minx titles, or was it even on your wish list? WE WONT HAVE JACK THOMPSON TO KICK AROUND ANY MORE: Thompson is best known for his crusades against video games, a fight that took the place of his previous battles against rap acts like the 2 Live Crew and Ice T, but (unsurprising for a conservative activist) he had his anti-gay moments amidst it all. Since it's looking like we won't have Jack Thompson to kick around much longer, I figured it's worth taking a look back at Thompson's history. After the break: The gay highlights of Thompson's career Thompson's early cases of gay-baiting started when he ran against Janet Reno for State's Attourney in 1988. At a campaign event, he handed a letter to Reno asking her to specify her sexual orientation, among other cases of gay baiting. After losing the election, he railed against a group tied to Reno claiming the group placed "homosexual-education tapes" in public schools. Bully fanart by ~owlet Thompson frequently faced off against Rockstar, the company that put out the Grand Theft Auto games (which Thompson frequently tried to connect to various homicides). Thompson also campaigned against Rockstar's gay-inclusive game Bully, bringing up comparisons to the tragedy at Columbine in his efforts to stop the game's release. While he was unsuccessful in that effort, Thompson tried to get the game's Teen rating pulled after Bully players discovered the game's boy-kissing, claiming to have found "gay sexual content" in the game that would be harmful to minors. The ESRB responded that they were well aware of the gay content when they gave the game its Teen rating. In 2005, Thompson took aim at another gay-inclusive game, The Sims, offended at nudity he found in the virtual dollhouse game. Most of his accusations against The Sims and the details of its sexual explicitness hilariously did not match the reality of the game, which turned out to be due to a prankster sending Thompson screen shots of a heavily modded version of the game. That revelation didn't deter Thompson, who moved on to declare that Electronic Arts should sue to shut down fansites that served the Sims' modding community or else have its rating changed from Teen to Mature. At least that incident allowed for snarky comments like when EA spokesman Jeff Brown noted that, "Reasonable people understand the San Jose Mercury News is not responsible for vulgar things that people doodle into the margins of the paper." The Sims 2 Still, easily Thompson's most hilarious gay moment came when he tried to discredit an ethics case against him by claiming that one person involved, gay activist Norm Kent, distributed "hardcore porn to anyone of any age" on a gay news website run by Kent. As proof, Thompson visited Kent's adult advertisers and included their images in his filing. That's right, he included gay porn in his legal filings ... and since he submitted it electronically, he basically set up the Florida courts as a source for gay porn. Only time will tell if we've seen the last of Thompson, but at the least his future efforts are now blunted and, more importantly, the disturbing/entertaining aspects of his career have become less distubring and more entertaining. EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Fallout 2 The site has one classic gay-inclusive game, the Fallout series, in its catalogue, as well as a wish list feature. It looks pretty promising, save for the part of the site that says "Coming in September 2008". Submitted by on Thu, 2008-10-02 11:40. |
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What Went Wrong With Legion
Legion stuff!
I thought I'd read that this latest Legion was being cancelled.
Really, I think one thing they should've done, if anything, was stick with the 1st whole reboot, with the Zero Hour Legion. (5 years later was actually still the same continuity, although barely it seemed.) That Legion had a lot going for it and seemed to be generally well liked. And they were still really relatively young, which I think was something that troubled the legion before it, that they were getting a bit older and then the whole 5 year gap thing.
Maybe if they'd only done the 5 year gap as a long elseworlds tale... People seem to like the Legion future to generally be bright and shiny, but then they do the really dark stories. Fan interest in Legion REALLY seemed to wane with the 5 year gap, and while the Zero hour Legion was breifly revitalized with the whole 'Legion Lost' and all that, it seemed to slide down in public perception from there. (Although I still liked it.)
I know I personally have really enjoyed the original Legion up until the 5 year gap, and then I loved the zero hour one but got a little disinterested with the Legion Lost time (actually the story that led to it) but still counted it among my favorite books up until it's end. This current Legion, while having a few interesting ideas, has NEVER caught my fancy, until Supergirl left. I got it, thought it was okay, and when they brought Supergirl in I thought it was horrid and stopped getting it. I started picking it up again after she left and it's been fair, but no where near the favorite it used to be.
I picked up the Action books with the 'original' Legion in it, and it was very good, but looks to be headed in a darker direction again. Okay, now I'm just rambling about stuff...sorry!
Anyway, I just wish we could get a nice stable Legion to have around for, what, maybe 10 years? That'd be nice. And with a group that ranges in size from 3 - 30, and is set 1,000 years in the future, could we PLEASE have at least 1 gay member? You know, who survives and is actually present in the stories? Invisible Kid was inching there in the end of the zero hour one, but c'mon! Sorry I have no real constructive criticizm to add... 8)
Legion
Okay, look at that cool Phil Jiminez pin-up again. You can't tell me that, with ALL those characters, at least 10 wouldn't be gay or bi. My gosh, look at all of them...
Legion was actually the title that got me interested in comics when I was about 8 years old or so, way back around 1980. My dad bought several of those old pocketbooks at a convenience store for me, and 28 years later, I'm collecting more than ever. (Thank you, disposable income.) Of course, I didn't know I was gay until years after that introduction to Legion. Hey, Legion made me gay!
Well, I hope the next incarnation goes back to basics (ie. the original team). Geoff Johns does do amazing work on group titles, so my hopes are high.
MINX
I read one Minx book, "The Plain Janes," because the concept of the Minx imprint is an admirable one and because I love the name "Jane." But it was filled with more estrogen than a 24-hour Gilmore Girls marathon and had less effeminate boy-jectification than a chauvanistic lesbian, so I related to the story in zero ways.
If anything these titles might be faulted with having too narrow a target demographic.
I quite enjoyed The Plain
I quite enjoyed The Plain Janes, and intend to buy the second book (the writer said the minor gay character from the first book was supposed to be developped, but the series will probably stop there).
I also liked Re-Gifters by Carey, Liew & Hempel, but a bit less than I'd liked the previous story by the same team, My Faith in Frankie, which was excellent.
I have no idea what DC could have done to make Minx work, since I'm rather outside their target demographic.
As for Legion, I did buy the collections of the current relaunch, to see what Waid and Kitson were doing. I didn't find it very interesting, and I'm quite bored with those mainstream titles which introduce a very minor gay character in one scene to forget him as quickly, and then seem to think they've done their bit for diversity. It's faintly insulting, especially with such a large cast.
François
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http://gaycomicslist.free.fr
Adult Legion
I'm probably an army of one but I loved the Adult Legion stories and the Giffen style. Maybe they should have been an elseworlds or Earth 2, but I loved rediscovering the characters bit by bit, thier transformations and changes. And they managed to work a ton of continuity into the stories. Lightning Lord was reformed in that series and was also openly gay, bringing his lover to a couple of social events. It'a probably one of the most original and exciting uses of the characters. The various reboots have been like so much rehashing. The tweaks were mostly tired. Some things seem to work more than others. I liked Andromeda, the Supergirl analoque to Monel's Superboy, and the whole Xenophobic Daxamite thread. I thought having the Titan Telepaths be mute was clever. The preponderance of twins on Winath as an excuse for both Mekt's villiany and the origin of Validus. Some things were just awful, Atom Girl for Shrinking Violet (also awful), Micro Lad for Colossal Boy (was Gim still jewish?) and the Snake version of Projectra (though the bratty princess isn't much better) I think its probably time for another Adult Legion series and let the classic version rest for awhile.
Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages.
Oh, the Legion...
...another ending for what is probably my favorite super-hero team. What do I think the problem is with the book? Actually, I think the LSH, more than many other books, feeds heavily into reader's nostalgia for the team. Whatever version of the team you happened to grow up with and feel closest to, that seems to define what the majority of readers are looking for in the book.
The problem is, with such a dense, convoluted, endlessly re-worked history, the book is poison for any new readers to try and get into. So it relies on those of us with a long history with the book to support it. And, as I mentioned previously, so many of us have our own various preferences for what team we want to see, rarely is anyone pleased. Especially with the newer versions of the team, which don't seem to capture the "vintage" spirit of the book. (Cosmic Lad made a good point... I think most readers prefer a "bright and shiny" future in the LSH. Unfortunately, almost all current comic books can't help but be dark, twisted, and cynical, which doesn't quite mix with the Legion's style).
I started with the Mike Grell, mid-70s, homoerotic-art-style era of the LSH, (remember Cosmic Boy's barely there costume?), and probably enjoyed the Levitz-Giffen years the most. No, I'm not clamoring for a complete, retro, return to that whole era, but some of that spirit would be nice. (Would also be nice to see what Mike Grell would do with the team these days). And yes... some acknowledgement of the gay fans who have carried this book for decades, by finally giving us a gay Legionnaire, would be most appreciated.
And please... if they do reboot or redesign it or whatever... bring back Chemical King!