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.