A Case of Shrinking Violet

So when people say that Giffen hated Karate Kid or Sun Boy, I often think that Keith Giffen liked Shrinking Violet.  She's a character though, that I don't think often gets her due, for several reasons.

A "shrinking violet" is an extremely shy person, which is somewhat how Salu Digby was presented, with the play on words that she had the power to shrink.  Like Sue Richards, her power was basically to disappear out of sight.  She failed her first attempt at Legion membership.   She was a member of the Espionage Squad and some classic stories even showed her being strategic on her own, as when she basically beat Grimbor and Charma by herself.  That's a story that showed her being very useful in the beginning by investigating the locks on the shackles for Superboy and Timber Wolf. 

As most people know, Vi was captured and impersonated by Yera, who later became Chameleon Girl.  This experience changed her.  It hardened her to an extent.  Her personality sorta goes all over the place until she and Lightning Lass start bonding.  Shrinking Violet did need some work as a character, it's just a shame that most of the missions we see her on, it is actually Yera.  

Vi became a key member of the 5YL for which I think Giffen may have had some hand in.  She had some significant storylines in the Reboot.  We didn't see much of her Threeboot counterpart, Atom Girl, but she did have some interesting moments.  We didn't get much of Shrinking Violet throughout the Retroboot either. Her only big win is in the v6 annual where she defeats the Emerald Eye. That issue was co-written by Keith Giffen.   And the Bendis Legion version didn't even utter one word balloon.  I think it's safe to say, Vi often ends up being a somewhat ignored Legionnaire.  I have to ask myself why.  

COMPARISONS

There are a fair amount of shrinking characters between Marvel and DC.  DC had the Doll Man, Atom, Blue Jay, Elasti-Girl and Bumblebee.  Marvel had a few Ant-Men, Wasp, Yellowjacket (the female one), Stature, Thumbelina and Micromax.  There are probably a few others I'm missing.  The one thing to note is many of these characters were scientists.  Many of them could grow as well as shrink.  Some could fly.  And some of them had other gimmicks as well, like energy blasts.  

So what does Vi have?  Well, she is not a scientist.  She can fly via her flight ring, but so can all the other Legionnaires. Shrinking Violet temporarily gained the power to grow from Thora in Adventure 368.  Reboot Vi was granted the power to grow permanently. And I'm not sure we ever saw LeViathan shrinking much after that. 

The reality is Shrinking Violet doesn't have anything power-wise that sets her apart. She has to rely on hand-to-hand combat, though I feel it may just be laziness or a lack of proper scripting that doesn't show Vi using her powers in battle. 

  

DURLANS

I'm not sure when the first time Chameleon Boy assumed the form of a small insect.  Durlans don't seem to have a lot of mass restrictions for their shape changing, which means they can become a large beast or become the size of a fly.  They can basically approximate Violet's powers for all intents and purposes.  We even saw in the Retroboot that Durlans can copy the powers people in their proximity.  Side note: I don't think Durlans need to be that powerful.  Nevertheless, it appears that Cham could not go subatomic without Vi present, in v7 when they enter Validus's prison cell.  But with Cham, he is also the Legion detective and a lateral thinker.  When they are both in a story together, he ends up getting the spotlight over her, even though she has shown detective skills as well.  But as stated previously, Durlans shrink enough not to cause suspicion that Yera was impersonating Vi.  Anything Vi can do, Cham can do better?

POTENTIAL

Vi certainly had some battle prowess.  She was noted for it even in the Reboot. Remember how I said she delivered the victory against Grimbor and Charma?  Consider this page:

Really, you can't do much better than this for solving a problem.  To me, it's no surprise that this character later became leader of the Legion at the tail end of the 5YL run.  The only problem is so many Legionnaires also show similar potential for leading squads or teams.  In fact, Tinya was the deputy leader of the Espionage Squad, not Vi.  

RELEVANT?

Shrinking Violet has what I like to call a 20th century power.  What I mean, is that during the 20th century, it works well for different things but doesn't hold us so well in future stories.  Anyone who watches Star Trek (24th century) knows how their computers can scan for life signs on a ship or planet.  Scanners would likely be able to detect an Imskian infiltrator.  I would assume anyone who watches any sci-fi would think similarly of the 31st century.  This is where the hard truth comes in that if you view the Legion as a sci-fantasy book, it's really hard to make her useful in a battle scenario against star ships or multiple enemies.  Shrinkers can be useful, but they are only good for one enemy at a time, whereas someone like Shadow Lass may be able to crowd control several opponents while another Legionnaire attacks.  It was the Atom's intelligence, coupled with his shrinking power, that allowed him to defeat Darkseid.  However, to make another shrinking character a genius is about as inspired as making your electrical characters also Black.  

Vi is the only Legionnaire that can go subatomic.  But how often does a superteam need that particular skill set?  Not often.  Also, with the 31st century, once can presume nanotech becomes more and more advanced.  You don't need a shrinker to enter into someone's bloodstream to do something.

THE POWERS

As Atom Girl, Salu had access to dual pistols.  

She was the only Threeboot Legionnaire who regularly carried weapons.  It may have had something to do with her being in some microverse.  I don't have a problem necessarily with Legionnaires using weapons; it is nicer though when the weapons work with their power in some fashion. However, having any type of blaster will immediately draw comparisons to Wasp.   This scene does give me something to ponder.  

We don't know much about how Shrinking Violet's powers work.  Adaptation to pulsating world?  I think we need to scrap that origin.  The Threeboot almost hints at a connection with Brainiac shrinking technology.  What we see in these panels is the guns shrink and grow with Atom Girl.  Obviously, her flight ring and costume always shrank and grew with her.  Perhaps she does have the ability to cause objects in her immediate possession to shrink and grow with her.  We are going a little into Pym territory with that power but she would have the limitation that she can't increase the size of an object past its original size, whereas Ant-Man and Wasp in their movie would use Pym particles to grow objects to a larger size. The downside to shrinking enemies though is that no one else would be able to fight them, so maybe it's not super useful.  

Ray Palmer was able to assert some control over his mass so he could hit harder.  Coupling that with her flight ring could make Vi a much harder hitter against an enemy.  I fear that's also an easy one to give to a Durlan too.

There isn't a rule that she couldn't have some sort of microscopic vision.  If you don't have Sensor Girl in the Legion, it's not going to hurt having another character with some enhanced vision powers. You have to figure, once she shrinks, her eyes can't perceive light the same way.  Electron microscopes don't work on light.  Microscopic vision could also play into her being a bit more of a detective as well.  

Is that enough?  The strength of the Legion has usually been its members with "quiet" superpowers though that is when the stories give them a chance to shine.

THE FUTURE

Shrinking Violet has not played a part in Bendis's Legion.  He seemed more focused on certain characters.  It remains to be seen if he will give some time to some other characters. I do wonder what the point of including her is if you don't do anything with her.  I know Bendis doesn't care about that stuff and thinks we should either.  

Bechdel Test: Legion Lost v2

I can't believe I forgot this one.  Yikes.  I didn't give the series a full reading but it's not a memorable one.  LL v2 feature a smaller set of Legionnaires with only 2 females, Chameleon Girl and Dawnstar.  That could be a hindrance to it passing.  Let's find out.  

So to refresh  your memory, this series starts out written by Fabian Nicienza for 6 issues.  Tom Defalco has a co-writing credit for issues 6 and takes over solo after that.  How did they do?

Niciena - 17%

Fabian only succeeds in the first issue.  Yera is presumed dead as of issue 2 but resurfaces a few issues later.  Her absence doesn't help.

Defalco -42%

Tom's contribution has a lot of crossovers with Titans.  Because we see Ravage, Caitlin Fairchild and others, he starts off strong with 5 issues in a row.  After that, not so much.  The 0 issue is a Timber Wolf spotlight.  Tom's run tried to do some stuff and it's hard to say whether the crossover's helped or hurt.  

I don't have much else to say about this.  There was a little too much infighting going on with the characters for me to enjoy this.  Yera seemed to have some moments of development but she was depicted as having a failed relationship with Colossal Boy.  That contradicted Gim's story in v7.  

Again, we have a lack of female supporting characters that doesn't help interactions either. The interaction, when they happen, are overall positive, i.e. not discussing a man. I guess we can give the full series a dismal 

Bechdel Test: Adventure Comics, the return

Bear with me on this one.  The numbering changed on Adventure, starting at #1 then taking over the old v1 Adventure numbering.  As I mentioned in my last post, Adventure did not start with just the Legion.  It read more as a Superman-family book with the aftermath of Legion of 3 Worlds. Some of the issues focus on Connor Kent which I won't count as Legion stories.  There was a Superboy-Prime story that I won't count either.   

Adventure starts with Geoff Johns on the first issue, with some later issues credited to Johns and Michael Shoemaker.  As some of the issues feat split stories, they don't feature a full Legion cast, only maybe 4 characters or so.  The Last Stand of New Krypton also runs through as well with most of that being written by Sterling Gates and James Robinson.  Levitz's run on Adventure starts with some "classic" Legion style stories in issue 12.  There is no issue 13 as the series goes from 12 to 516.   Issue 521 joins Retroboot continuity and 523 focuses on the Academy.  The series ends with 529.

Funny side note:  Supergirl appears in issue 520.  Invisible Kid is also listed as Jacques even when it is clearly Lyle. Continuity what?

The Legion does not appear in issues 5, 6, or 7.  The non-Levitz issues do not pass the Bechdel test.  Sensor Girl was the only female Legionnaire in the Last Stand storyline.  So I guess you can say Johns, Gates and Robinson are all zeroes with the Bechdel test.  

I think I will just give each individual issue for simplicity's sake

12- Levitz - N

516 - Levitz -N

517 - Levitz - Y (focused on Saturn Girl and she talks with new character Esquivel)

518 - Levitz - N

519 - Levitz - N

520 - Levitz - N

521 - Levitz - N

522 - Levitz - N Sorry, I have to be a dick here and say the only female characters with dialog are GiGi and Harmonia.  No female Legionnaires say anything. 

523 - Levitz/Jiminez - Y

524 - Levitz/Jiminez  - N

525 - Levitz/Jiminez - Y

526 - Levitz - Y

527 - Levitz - Y

528 - Levitz - Y

529 - Levitz - Y

Again, I have to wonder if there is a trend that when Levitz has a co-writer, he is more likely to pass the Bechdel test.  It also helps that there is a large portion of female characters in the Academy stories.  While issue 526 already passed in the main story, the XS backup also passes because Levitz had Night Girl talking to XS.  He could have sent Bouncing Boy and I'm kinda surprised he didn't.  That's how you pass the Bechdel test though. It's not that hard and it's not artificial or some type of SJW agenda.  

All in all, 12 issues are attributed to Levitz solely and 5 of those pass which is 42%.  If we add in the Levitz/Jiminez issues, that is 7/15 or 47%

Where does that leave everything?

v8 -62.5%

Secret Origin - 0%

v7-42%

v6-29%

Adventure (overall) - 32%

Levitz's track record overall with co-writers (22 out of 62 issues)- 35% passing.

Up next:  v5 or the Threeboot.  It might take me a while for this since I want to revisit Mark Waid's run, but also Jim Shooter. I want to see how Waid's run holds up but also, people think Shooter's run was bad and I remember liking it.

Bechdel Test: V6 Retroboot

Again, I am working backwards here.  After doing Secret Origin, I was not looking forward to V6.  So I am just going to rip off the band-aid here.  How did Levitz do?

There are 5 out of 17 issues (16 plus the annual) that pass the Bechdel test, and I'm being generous here.  That is an abysmal 

So some observations about this volume. While this builds off of what Geoff Johns had wrote, we have Night Girl shipped off to the Academy and XS in Limbo. There are 27 Legionnaires we see in this volume; only 9 are female and some don't last the whole way through (Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, Shrinking Violet, Phantom Girl, Dawnstar, Sensor Girl, Shadow Lass, Dream Girl, Chameleon Girl).  Saturn Girl is in the first arc, but she is remanded back to reserve status after.  Now, I haven't read the Geoff Johns "Superman & LSH" story in a while so I can't remember if he was writing her as an active member or just came out of retirement.  If we remember V3, Imra and Garth both gave up active membership but Imra returned.  Sensor Girl goes inactive after the events of the annual which is about halfway through this volume.  Chameleon Girl is largely ignored as an active member.  Harmonia and GiGi are 2 female supporting characters but that barely helps.  

Despite the fight for representation, the other part of this is Levitz really doesn't write his female characters well.  Cham, Tinya and Yera are standing outside in the rain for a mission, no transuits which would keep them dry, but Tinya could go intangible to stay dry.  I know that seems really nitpicky but it makes total sense and is a fun visual.  Cham also has to tell Tinya to stay intangible while infiltrating.  This should be second nature for Tinya.  It's silly how she gets knocked out by a rock in issue 2.  Ayla is not written very well even though she is a big gun.  Shady barely uses her powers throughout.  Vi doesn't really get any spotlight until the Annual.  

When we do see two females interact, there are 4 times they are discussing a man.  Dawnstar and Nura are on a mission together with Gates in issue 2 but there really isn't any interaction between them.  The standout issue for passing the Bechdel test is the annual which shares a writing credit with Giffen.  Now, it helps that Ayla and Vi are the focus of the issue and that their antagonist is the Emerald Empress.  Also, because of location of Orando, Sensor Girl is involved too.  Is it because of Giffen's involvement that this issue passes?  It's not clear, but between V6 and V7, there are 3 issues with writing credit to Giffen/Levitz and 2 of those pass the Bechdel test.  Issue 6 also has the Legion Academy backup but Levitz is credited as Writer.  Jiminez is only listed as artist.

If anyone has any thoughts about Giffen/Levitz being parsed out separately, let me know.  It's often hard to know how much Giffen contributed to a story when he is only credited as artist.  Steve Lightle even contributed to plot in some of his issues back in the day even though not credited as such.  

The next will be the Adventure run.  That is tricky as not all the issues are Legion focused, with some just as backup stories.

Bechdel Test: Legion Secret Origins

Sorry, I was hoping to have a more regular posting schedule but I've had a lot going on personally, including the death of my mother.  

I didn't want to skip this limited series which came out right around volume 7.  It was pretty unforgettable except for the gorgeous Chris Batista art.  It was six total issues, all written by Paul Levitz.  So how did it turn out?  

That's correct.  Not one issue of this series passed the Bechdel test.

My notes:

This series had very few female characters.  The precog whom I'm not sure had a name, Saturn Girl, Triplicate Girl and Phantom Girl.  What would have changed it is actually: just making one of the other characters than the Naltorian was working with a female.  There wasn't really a reason Levitz couldn't have made another of the characters female.  But the lack of female characters meant it was be more difficult to have two females have a conversation for the Bechdel test. 

Triplicate Girl barely had any dialog.  There is a conversation between her and Phantom Girl in issue 5 and what do they talk about?  Ultra Boy.  And Superman.   Any incidental characters were also male.  

Not much more to say here.  If we are keeping track of Levitz as a writer, he has 10 passes out of 30 issues, making him overall at 30%.  Volume 6 will be next.

Bechdel Test - V7 (nu52)

This will be my first evaluation of Paul Levitz material.  I always felt like the Retroboot was an overall regression in Paul's Legion writing.  I was curious to see how this one panned out, considering the makeup of this Legion was near 50-50 male to female ratio.  Even though Yera and Dawnstar were moved to Legion Lost, there was a gain of Glorith, Harmonia, Comet Queen and Dragonwing.  I will also point out that issues 17 and 18 are shared Giffen/Levitz writing.  This also includes the 0 issue as well. 

How did Levitz do?  10 out of 24 issues.

I don't think this was a good showing at all.  Some of my notes:

1. There were 3 separate instances of two female characters discussing a man, specifically admiring them or discussing a relationship of sorts.

2. I have two instances where they technically count, Nura after she slaps Comet Queen after betraying them.  And Otaki and Duplicates girl talking about strategy. 

3. The Saturn Girl vs. Emerald Empress battle was counted in issue 22

4.  Issue 17 only featured 6 total Legionnaires, not counting the now dead Sun Boy.  Both Glorith and Phantom Girl were on separate teams. 

Now many female characters were represented, Phantom Girl especially which may have had something to do with her leadership vote but she really did not interact with many females other than being with Dragonwing on an early mission and there was no interaction between them. There were a lot of missions that were male oriented too 

What worked:  Harmonia being a scientist helped greatly as she could help fulfill that role instead of Brainiac.  Dragonwing's journey to China helped and gave some great positive representation by having her fight her sister. 

So far the rankings are 

v8 - 62.5%

v7 - 42%

Next, I think I will do the Legion Secret Origin since that fits in with v7.

Bendis Legion at the Bechdel Test

I went through 16 issues for Bendis which includes his entire LSH run, Millennium and Future State.  

So how did Bendis do?  62.5%  

10 out of 16 issues pass the Bechdel test.  To go over a few of the results I do have to point out a few things. 

Methodology:

Bendis is a fan of multiple parties having word balloons in a panel.  Just because there are two female characters in a panel who say words, they are not actually talking to each other.  These scenes do not qualify as a pass.

However, I have decided I will try to be as broad as possible.  In scenes with multiple characters, if it was apparent that one female was talking to another, like a question asked and responded, then as long as it met the last criteria, I gave it a pass.  

Another thing to consider as I move on will be Luornu Durgo aka Triplicate Girl, aka Duo Damsel, aka Triad, aka Duplicate Girl.  Bendis liked to write a sentence spread between the three of them.  This is not a pass.  They are not even having a complete conversation.  I may asterisk these character interactions as time goes on.  Different writers had different takes on the character, and I feel some takes should be a pass of the test.  

As I started to analyze, I realize I only wanted to track whether there is a "pass".  I generally won't be noting how many passes there are per issue.  It might be an interesting metric to track but the test itself doesn't specify that.  It also stands to reason that an issue may have have two female characters talk about a man earlier in an issue, but then later, talk about something else.  I have decided that will still be a pass.  One will not negate the other.

One decision I will have to make as I continue will be to determine how I should rate a hero/villain interaction.  RJ is technically an antagonist for this series but not really a villain.  The actual villains (Mordru, Rogol Zaar, Crav Nah) are all male.  As we go back, we will have many more female villains, so the question will be whether to count banter in a battle as an actual interaction.  I'm inclined to say no but would be willing to hear any thoughts on it.  

Breakdown:

Millennium

1 - P

2 - F While there is a lot of internal dialog for Rose, she doesn't speak to another female the entire issue.  In fact, she is the only female in the issue.

Main Title

1 - F

2- P Twice

3 - P

4 - P

5 - P

6 - F

7 - F

8 - P Twice

9 - P

10 - P I am giving a broad pass between Imra and Sevenbergen

11 - P

12 - P

Future State 

1 - P  This is a broad pass.  Imra addresses Tasmia when she asks if she is going to kill Ultra Boy.  While they are technically discussing a man, it is not in any romantic sense.  I decided to pass it.

2 - F  I give this a fail.  Duo Damsel's conversation, while it gives some insight to the loss of their "sister" is not really two characters talking to each other.  They are responding in tandem.  

I will note that one thing that helped Bendis pass the test was the gender swap on RJ Brande.  Issues 2 and 8 both had an RJ interaction that would not have made a different technically, but issue 5 would have been a fail if RJ was male.  

I know I was critical of Bendis early on for the optics of having a male dominant team.  I think I originally counted it was less that 40% of the team was female.  He did focus a good bit on females like Triplicate Girl, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, RJ, Rose with some others receiving some dialog.  Will other writers fare better or worse?  That is an interesting question.  I think I do Volume 7 next and give that series a go.  That series had a nearly 50% female to male membership of Legionnaires.  Will it rank higher or lower than Bendis?

The Legion of Super-Heroes and the Bechdel Test.

One of my favorite Twitter accounts is The Claremont Run.  He analyzes various aspects of Chris Claremont's time spent writing The X-Men and its spinoffs.  One thing he painstakingly tackles is whether Claremont passels the Bechdel Test aka the Bechdel-Wallace Test.  The Wikipedia entry tells you what you need to know about the test, the origin and why it can be a useful tool for female representation.  Quite simply, applied to a movie, in order to pass, it must check three boxes:

1. The movie has to have at least two women in it,
2. who talk to each other,
3. about something other than a man.

Sounds simple enough, right?  It does boil down a bit to defining parameters. Some add the element that both women must be named, or there must be a total of sixty seconds of conversation.  Obviously, the time limit can be seen as arbitrary, but I think that named aspect is fairly important.  A female character asking a waitress about specials on the menu passes the test in the broadest sense, but if that is the only female-female conversation in a movie, should it pass?  We really didn't learn anything about either woman in that time, except what foods they may prefer.  Not really deep stuff.

Nevertheless, this tool can be applied to comics.  Because of the nature of comics, I think we should look at it from a sharing of panels.  I think the characters should be named, but there really can't be a time limit (we all read at different paces).

So I think I want to apply this to the Legion of Superheroes.  I have often been critical of the Legion over the years.  They hadn't always been good at positive representation of female characters. My intent is to break down various runs by writers.  This will of course be difficult considering Paul Levitz had three separate runs on Legion titles with sometimes multiple concurrent series.  I also intend to log the years as well to help analyze any trends or other factors.  Bendis will the easiest writer to start with since I feel.  Wish me luck. 

Why I have given up on the Bendis Legion.

I'm sure some will read this post and regard me as a Bendis-hater.  Let me say that I was drawn to Bendis very early on through Alias and Daredevil.  I thought he was weaving some complex characterization and interactions.  I gave his Avengers series a shot and did not enjoy them one bit.  Bendis doesn't write team books that I want to read.  Part of that is he isn't doing deep dives into characterization.  

Let me say next that I did not read his Superman run.  I may have read Action Comics a little in the 80s but wasn't a regular buyer of any Superman title.  So coming into Legion, I only have a passing knowledge of Jon Kent and Rose and Thorn.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Character Design

Some of the first images we had of the Legion shows characters who looked different and we had no idea who they may be.  Some of that is Sook's designs and I do like some of them.  Dawnstar with her new spirit wings is an interesting concept and gets away from that whole oddity of flying through space with bird wings. There was an oddity, you have to admit.  Promotional art showed a character with purple skin and a halo with no indication of who it was. Dream Girl was made of sand.  Element Lad was green and Matter Eater Lad was bulky with an exo-skeleton.  Some characters appeared to be more recognizable.  Cosmic Boy looked like he was given a slightly darker complexion.  Possibly Asian.  Early art showed some other characters were given different skin hues.  Projectra appeared to be pink.  Karate Kid was decidedly Asian.  Bouncing Boy was darker skinned and Ultra Boy was a skinny boy with a somewhat darker skin tone, possibly Latinx.  There were also some new characters as well.  Sun Boy was turned into plasma being.  

We first get promotional art of the 1st issue cover.  Then in a surprising change, we see that Garth is now Black (and Ayla) and Bouncing Boy is Caucasian.  It seemed to be a quick switch and...odd. 

Speculation was confirmed that characters were essentially based on a time period of Legion history from the 70s or 80s. Were Ferro Lad and Chemical King members?  Would there be an Invisible Kid.  If so, which one. The presence of the White Witch was throwing it off and there was no Tyroc. No Tyroc.  

Now, most people know that Bendis created Miles Morales, a new multi-ethnic Spider-Man.  He later created RiRi Williams and Naomi McDuffie, attempting to add diversity to character.  Bendis has two daughters who are Black so presumably, he created Riri and Naomi for them, or so the story goes. And Bendis seemed to create a new diverse character in the Legion, a Gold Lantern. But no Tyroc.  We do find out there is an Invisible Kid.  He doesn't become visible but we find out his name is Lyle. 

The question I asked is why Bendis would ignore one of the Legion's one diversity characters and switch races of other characters.  Now, I will acknowledge there was a version of Computo whose AI appearance did match that of Danielle Foccart.  But Bendis could have also added Kid Quantum, or Gear, or XS.  I know other writers have race-switched characters.  We saw it in the Threeboot.  It happens in TV adaptations of comics.   Generally, I don't care about that stuff.  I was just bothered that he didn't lift up the bit of diversity the Legion did have over the years. 

However, as we come to find out with Shrinking Violet who was race-switched, it really didn't matter because she didn't have one word of dialog in 12 issues.  If Shrinking Violet was your favorite character, you could have pretended she was never there.  

Also, the purple girl with a halo.  That's Phantom Girl and she uses the halo as a teleport portal.  Now, we do get a bit from her during the artist spotlight issues.  Come to find out she was actually romantically involved with Mon-El, not Ultra Boy.  And that is the only time we see her phase. I can only surmise that the artist knew that has always been her power and he drew that.  If this is Tinya from Bgztl, it also contradicts the Phantom Girl we got in The Terrifics in the post-Metal DCU.  But really, Bendis would never care about that.  Why change her powers?  If he wanted a teleporter, why not Veilmist with her magenta hued skin.  Or Gates?

Well, we really didn't have an alien looking Legionnaire in this version. No methane-breathing swimmer like Tellus.  No energy being who has to exist in a ship like Quislet.  And no insectoid like Gates.  We have Blok who is a humanoid, bipedal stone creature.  We have another humanoid in Monster Boy.  And Doctor Fate appears alien with 4 arms, but still bipedal and we don't see anything else.  

So really, it feels like the Legion of Superheroes in name only.  I feel like Bendis has tried to sell the Legion to us as updated versions of our favorite characters.  I don't think he accomplished that.

The Ranzzes and Inconsistencies 

Going back to the sudden change with Lightning Lad and Bouncing Boy.  At one point, I guess it might have been raised to Bendis why he had a Black electricity based characters, when we have Black Lightning and his children who appear on network TV and Static still seems to be a fondly remembered character.  Bendis supposedly wanted to hint at possibly some lineage.  Well, we later find out that Garth and Ayla are 2 of many children from a poor family on Winath, maybe in issue 6 or 7?  One Black member of a Facebook group I'm in was annoyed with that depiction.  Maybe Bendis meant well, but it's not that great of an idea.  Also, no indication that there was a Mekt either which was one of the defining characteristics of Garth.  Also, long time readers know that Cosmic Boy's family was seen more as the poor family despite Rokk being an athlete. 

From the earliest promotional art, Ayla appears to be Light Lass, not Lightning Lass, complete with feather motif.  Now, I have written before about my disdain of Light Lass's powers.  In one scene, it looks like she is doing an actual light blast, not anti-gravity.  However, we see her start using lightning powers without a reason why, even while wearing a feather costume.  

Moving on from the Ranzzes, we later see the Invisible Gentleman, aka Jacques. No mention of Lyle.  We see Jacques become visible and he is Black.  But then he storms off panel and is neither seen or heard of again.  What was the point of all that anyway?

Nevertheless, some reader points out that in some reprint version, it is no longer Lyle who announces himself but Jacques.  I have to ask myself if Bendis is literally making this up as he goes month to month. Beyond that, part of the fascination of the Legion was learning these characters, their names, their powers and the origins.  Some people say just enjoy the ride.  I can't.  It's not fair to readers to just write off some last minute changes as wibbly wobbly timey wimey.  

I feel like editors should have done a better job keep Bendis on track.  

Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium

So if you are like me, you probably bought this two-part series at $5 an issue that many thought would be some type of preamble or world building to the upcoming title.  It was a focus on Rose and Thorn, a character I virtually knew nothing about but Bendis had used in his Superman run.  It seemed to be required reading for the new series.  And it wasn't poorly written. Probably could have been one issue though.  Nevertheless, it seems to give an importance to Rose that she may be some how integral to the Legion series. But Rose isn't really developed over the first 12 issues.  She does get a few lines.  She is made Legion advisor, not sure why.  But otherwise, she doesn't add much to the title.  So for this, Millennium appears to have been just an attempt to cash in on Legion fandom.  There really is very little world building in this.  We get a sense of things that things have been up and down for Earth and there is a Kara Zor-El appearance but it was a total skip. 

The borrowing from prior continuities

So Bendis decided to borrow bits from other Legions.  For example, Projectra's name is given as Wilimena Morgana Daergina Annaxandra Projectra Velorya Vauxhall.  This was her name from the Threeboot.  Colossal Boy also indicates he is from a race of giants, just like the Threeboot version who wanted to be called Micro Lad.  Also, we get an Earth that is constructed from a network of domes, just as New Earth was after its destruction in the 5YL version.  Perhaps he is trying to sell this as a post-Crisis-New52-Convergence Legion and that's what these nods are for.  Personally, I feel it is just laziness or he is jealous he didn't think of it first.  Decide for yourself what it really is.

New characters

So there were actually several new characters introduced for this version.  We primarily see Dr. Fate, Monster Boy and Gold Lantern.  Dr. Fate is just a deus ex machina for the book and I'm not sure why would we would need both Dr. Fate and White Witch on the team.  Monster Boy gets a few panels and dialog; naturally since he is a Bendis creation.  I don't hate him but he is somewhat limiting.  Gold Lantern was a snooze.  He looks very much like he would fit into the emotional spectrum but we find out he really isn't but not through any turn of events in the story, just Brainiac saying so. Remind me why I should care.

There was also Soultaker who was some type of Katana legacy that made an appearance in Doomsday Clock and nowhere else.  We seen in the early art X-Ray Girl who had quite a lot of speculation about her.  She appears in a lot of panels but there is nothing said about her, she has no dialog and we don't see her powers in action. We also find out two somewhat alien members were planned from Sook art called Entropy Kid and Radius Lad.  They make a few background appearance but don't even factor into the large scenes..  Comics Vine actually has some background on their powers given by Doughnut42.

Radius Lad is mute, but he is also a living antenna that can tap into a signal anywhere in the galaxy. He projects these signals as his voice , which he can weaponize depending on the signal. He also is an armored roly-poly that is nearly indestructible when rolled up.

Entropy Kid can accelerate or reverse the current state of decay of any matter. For example, he can bring a young branch to fruit instantly, or take it back to seed.

X-ray Girl can make any solid object transparent with her touch.

I guess their powers are OK but Radius Lad and X-Ray Girl sound like they would be more appropriate for the subs.  Entropy Kid just sounds like Kid Quantum powers.  Also, sounds like the female character has the lamest powers.  Can't we just get over the poor representation of female and their powers in the Legion.  Given all these characters in the Legion, the characters that appear to be male outnumber the females about 2:1 with the males still appearing to be more "powerful."  Can't we get past this? 

Ferro Lad

This was actually a bright spot in the title.  Ferro Lad appears and he is Black, harkening back to how Jim Shooter originally intended the character. He has some dialog which almost infers he turns into Nth metal, not iron, which is odd to call him Ferro Lad.  I'm a big fan of the character and was glad to see him back.  The weirdest part was that previews tagged him as being a member when we hadn't actually seen him.  I'm going to go back to poor planning on Bendis's part.  

The title was misnamed

If you were a fan of Princess Projectra, she doesn't get many panels.  Many characters don't.  It's quite apparent after you read the conclusion of the first 12 issues that this series leaned heavily into Superman lore.  We learn that Mon-El actually is a Kryptonian El, not a Daxamite.  But that he also has Zod lineage.  And at the end, Rogol Zaar makes an appearance.  I had to go to wikipedia for that one.  He's a Bendis creation that was a failed attempt at creating a new big bad.  I've seen posts on Reddit and CBR forums and quite a few people regard him as not very engaging.  

The real focus of this series has been Superboy.  He has the most lines, the most panels and the most story.  He's our POV character looking in on the future.  For these reasons, the series should have been called Superboy & The Legion of Super-Heroes.  I think that would have set reader expectations of what the series would be.  The Legion are for the most part, supporting characters in this book. 

My conclusion

I gave it 14 issues,  When I started writing this, Future State had already been published but I didn't buy those issues.  Some people have stated they were good issues, leaning more into the 5YL style.  I didn't  read the issues but have raid some reviews.  Nevertheless, we see Triplicate Girl become Duo Damsel.  *sigh*  I guess we just need to rehash that another time.  

I think the Bendis Legion may be enjoyed by people who have never read the Legion before.  Some longtime Legion fans may enjoy it, but I see many longtime readers not. A friend gave it 6 issues before he dropped it.  The takeaway is every person had different expectations of what it would be.  I honestly tried to give it a chance. A friend stopped reading at 6 issues.  I think it was at that point that I started to make my judgements and realized I wasn't really enjoying it.  

Possibly part of my disappointment is the fact that I read very few comics these days because I simply don't enjoy them.  Maybe younger generations view Bendis's writing style differently.  Bendis doesn't like to show, he likes to tell you. He likes full pages full of dialog, but Bendis has a hard time in team books of giving characters their own voice.  For me, it's not working for this book.  

Should have been a contender: Issue 9

This one is pretty short.  He's one of the longest running Academy members, being a trainee was Dawnstar was there.  We all know him: Jedidiah Rikane, aka Power Boy.

Jed's power was original termed as a condensed molecular structure, granting him super strength and a degree of durability, though nothing on the level of Kryptonian invulnerability. It's a power that would be tough to get into membership given how many members possessed super-strength.

He was from Earth but we never got an origin story as to how he received his powers.   Nevertheless, he made several appearances over the years, mostly cameos.  Sometimes showing some true combat ability, sometimes not..  He was killed off during the 5YL timeline and wasn't seen in either of the other two Legions.  His character returned in the Legion Academy stories in Adventure Comics.  Here, he changed greatly.  The first notable change was the while he dated Lamprey in the Academy during the Levitz/Giffen years, now he may be considered bisexual, as he began a relationship with Gravity Kid. 

Secondly, his appearance, while muscular seemed slightly less bulky.  Thirdly, his power is referred to as personal density control, indicating that he could increase his density at will, and decrease his density to the point of becoming intangible.  He was like the Vision or Jesse from Mutant X if anyone remembers that show. 

As a side note, can I say that I enjoy the use of black over blue in his costume.  It helps tone down the garishness of having purple skin with his ginger hair

With these expanded powers, he obviously would be much more useful, being able to handle both espionage and be in the thick of combat.  If Tinya and Jo ever decided to leave the Legion, he makes up for both their absences . Even if they were not gone, he would still remain a unique member of the Legion. How many Legionnaires powers can be used in place of others?  Reep or Yera instead of Vi anyone?

Personality-wise he was a bit of a meathead. Levitz, his creator, seemed to favor giving people with super-strength a lack of intelligence.  I doubt Levitz ever intended to give him much respect as a character.  I get it, not everyone can be a Legionnaire, but there is also something to be said for having characters with more unique abilities.

Unfortunately, the Retroboot was not kind to Power Boy.  Jed graduated from the Academy but was not offered Legion membership.  He, Lamprey, Crystal Kid and Nightwind were shoveled off to the SP or something else.  Long term Legion fans probably wanted to see these characters again and become members, instead of Comet Queen, Chemical Kid and the rest. I don't think Levitz ever really had an interest in developing those characters. 

Now, he may be relegated to Limbo again as there is no Academy in the Bendis-boot nor has he made an appearance yet as a tertiary character.  I think it is a shame. Bisexual characters are few.  His powers were unique enough to make him useful.