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.  

LSH vol 8, #8

So going to attempt a review on this issue.  Going to try to keep it short at to the point.  I have tried to remain open to Bendis's Legion.  I feel he has fell in to his typical Bendis tropes of pointless banter, decompressed plot, among other things.  The first page is a recap by Jon which if you've read any of the 7 previous issues, you probably know what's going on.  Now, the next pages each feature a different artist.  It's unclear how much direction each artist was given on their page .

The Element Lad page was another waste of space.  Banter and the artist doesn't even do a go job of representing Jan's powers.  Dream Girl was more of the same, though her dialog was much more interesting.  A nice touch of her having an astral projection aspect to her powers.  Something similar to Dreamer from Supergirl? But rather than show us, it has to be kept some big surprise what it looks like.  Boo!

Projectra.  OK, he took her 3Boot name.  More dialog.  The kicker is the last panel hinting at some type of mystery that with an illusion caster, things aren't what they appear.  I'm sure we will come back to that in about 3 years.  Maybe.  The Chameleon Boy page hints at the relationship between him and President Brand but again, he's telling us something Superboy already told us about on the first page.

The Ultra Boy page is a total waste. BIG FONTS. The next page, is more Bendis banter.  What bothers more is coming up.

Lightning Lass is some other mystery when we've seen the Light Lass costume.  People have speculated that Ayla has multiple powers and her costume changes to match.  We will see.  So now we see Wildfire.  If we skip back two pages, he was asking Monster Boy and Gold Lantern for back up.  There are nowhere in these panels.  That's a continuity problem. Notice how the narrator says "two Kryptonians?"

The next page, Mon-El jumps into action.  Overall, these and the previous 2 aren't too bad in terms of an action sequence.  If we had one artist, it probably would have flowed a little better.  The Blok page is problematic.  I actually like the art and the fight sequence because this was something Levitz never did with Blok.  However, the Interlac is sooooo difficult to read that I couldn't be bothered.  Bendis's use of Interlac has been overkill with pages of colored text. And don't get me wrong, back in the day, I could read the script just fine.  My eyes aren't as good as they used to be.  Other people have translated the text which is Blok's internal dialog that Shadow Lass doesn't do much.  Well, we only saw her in the last panel.  Another mystery for another year I'm sure. 

Saturn Girl's art is pretty, however it is one page of dialog and her striking a typical Saturn Girl pose.  I know, I know, it's David Mack's style.  It disrupts the flow of action with nothing else occurring on the page.   The Timber Wolf page is pretty good.  Not much to say.  

The Colossal Boy page.  Now I have not been really griping on the art choices too much.  As I noted, the artists probably were only given so much to work with and since you don't have one artist showing continuity you get this.  My problem here is the choice of breaking up the page in 4 panels.  The second panel literally shows nothing.  And then Dawnstar was obviously successful getting Wildfire out of the ghost trap.  Here we just see her flying and doing nothing.  I hate when writers can't find a way to make Dawnstar useful.  

The Cosmic Boy page was the perfect page out of this issue for me.  We actually got some good development here.  And it feels like classic Cosmic Boy. Though we have an artist error showing him on other pages.  But was it the artist, the writer or the editor?  Then 

The Brainiac page is garbage dialog. It adds nothing.  Sorry.  Ferro Lad is on-point and Allred is on-point. He actually drew Ferro Lad in Batman '66 & LSH from 2017.  I wonder if he's a fan of the character.  Notice the little Saturn Girl head talking to Andrew?  That's what I'm talking about.  

The double page spread is pretty but given how little we got out of the rest of the issue, I can't be impressed.  

I'm not sure what to think of the Rose page.  The Phantom Girl page is pretty good..  It gives an OK amount of story as well.  She and Mon-El were a couple?  Hopefully we see some type of development for Phantom Girl.  If this just serves to put her into Ultra Boy's arms, I'm already bored.

The last page confirms what we've all suspected, that Mon is Jon's descendant. The dialog is more of Bendis's non sequitur for the purpose of comedy.  Or to confuse.

So while it was great we got to see some individual Legionnaires in action, the concept of numerous artists actually gave a more disjointed product where we may have needed it.  Other times, it worked well. I think Bilquis Everly really delivered on my favorite page.  The panels were perfect. Mike Allred delivered my second favorite page.  The third person narration is actually Chameleon Boy and Brande which I'm not sure adds to the story.  I guess it is meant to be the continuity between the pages but it's barely a device to string together origins with the current plot. But, if Cham is recounting the events, why do we see pages like the Cosmic Boy one where he would not be present?   I'm guessing we will see something more like this in the next issue as the artist event continues.

I would not have had David Mack's page right in the middle of an action sequence. Part of that page could be used showing Dawnstar retrieving Wildfire, Garth tending to Ayla.  

I'm not sure what grade I would give this issue.  It definitely has some good parts but other parts just feel sloppy.  

Ferro Lad is back...

 Ferro Lad is Black

Supergirl March 3, 2019 - Legion references

I probably could have been documenting some of the Legion references in Supergirl just for the sake of reference.  Spoilers after the jump