Superman #697 - one page and a request

[perletwo]

One page from Superman #697, in which the Legion Espionage Squad reunites.





I see Tiger Woods in Reep's face - the shape of the eyes maybe - and Keanu Reeves in Tenzil's. Jan's is familiar but I can't place it; thoughts? Also, feeling much better about the Sensor Girl redesign now thx, even though you can't see much of it in this splash page.


And the request: I just finished reading The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy and the History of Comic Book Heroines. It mentions at one point in the 1990s the Wasp of the Avengers started mutating into an actual wasp? Does anyone have scans of this?

Tag wranglers!
char: chameleon boy/reep daggle, element lad/alchemist/jan arrah, char: matter-eater lad/tenzil kem, char: quislet, char: princess projectra/sensor girl, char: star boy/starman/thom kallor, char: tellus, creator: james robinson, creator: javier pina, group: legion of super-heroes, publisher: dc comics, title: superman

Comments

[wabbitseason]

I think this artist made Sensor Girl's new costume look a little better with the side angles he used for his art. I still hate the new costume. To quote Project Runway, "it's a *lot* of look". I think she should Projectra or Sensor Girl not both at the same time. It loses some of mystery of the character for me. But then again she was always one of my favorites. I started reading Legion regularly right when she was brought into the team with the whole mystery of her identity.

[perletwo]

Yeah, it's still a whole lotta somethin' goin' on there with Sensor Girl's costume, but it's not nearly as bad here as this made me fear.

I started reading regularly in the 80s right around the time Projectra and Karate Kid got married and moved to Orando, so I'm right there with you on the "Jeckie is Awesome" bandwagon.

[stig]

Agreed. The addition of a crown and eyeholes to the mask make her look slightly more open, but I'm still apprehensive about the whole cleavage thing. The artist has managed to cover it up here with her cloak, but still...

I'll third that 'Jeckie is Awesome' sentiment. The Sensor Girl version has always been my favourite above the Emma-Frost-lite version and the oh-look-giant-snake version.

[saralakali]

I'm not real familiar with Emma Frost because I don't read Marvel, but I thought she was a telepath, not an illusion-caster. What little I know of Emma's character, I'm just not getting how she and Jeckie are alike.

[stig]

I was basing it on personality and unnecessarily revealing costumes as opposed to power set.

[saralakali]

But her costume was one of the less revealing ones of the time. Shadow Lass's and Saturn Girl's costumes both showed far more skin than Jeckie's. Sure there was a plunging neckline (like Dawnstar's) and decorative cutouts down the sleeves (like Phantom Girl's), but it was positively modest compared to the outfits they put NIght Girl (from the Subs) and Laurel Kent (from the Academy) in. Unless you're talking about her original costume which was still pretty modest as far as heroine costumes go.

Again, I don't know Emma other than she was a villain for a long time and from the snippets I've seen posted here (I know, not necessarily an accurate representation), she seems like a stone cold, steamrollin' bitch. Sure, Jeckie wasn't opposed to throwing the occasional royal temper tantrum if it served a greater purpose, but she was pretty much good-hearted and devoted to Karate Kid. For a long time, she was cast as a damsel in distress in most of her appearances. She didn't grow much of a spine until after she'd resigned from the Legion to ascend to the throne of Orando.

[pallas_athena]

Projectra's white hair was also very Frost-like.

[cleome45]

Now, now. We NEED as many boob windows/windshields as possible or we stupid fans are likely to forget that we're looking at a female!

They should bring back her giant curly Eighties hair, too. I'm sick of the curly-haired being an extinct species in both present and future.

[saralakali]

I don't think it's supposed to be a boob window. I think it's just a plunging neckilne interrupted by her cape fastening.

(Not that your basic point isn't scarily accurate.)

[cleome45]

<--- Yeah, just imagine this icon (amateurish though it may be) directed at our "good friends" in Marketing. :p

[neuhallidae]

I actually posted the page where the bug-form first appeared. "Death-Pixie" is a pretty apt description.

[perletwo]

zOMG, she's like sparkly pink DEATH! *snorfle*

Thanks for the link, I don't recall seeing that on the old comm - the 'bug-Wasp' reference befuddled me completely.

[neuhallidae]

I think Deodato was the only artist to ever draw Bug!Wasp, but he and the colorists could never keep jack straight. She had a nose, she didn't have a nose; she could fold her wings, she couldn't fold her wings (and sometimes they were missing entirely, even though a point had been made that she couldn't retract them like in her human form); her 'hair' was purple, pink, brown; her skin was yellow, orange, vaguely purplish, and so forth. Considering how short the timeframe was that she kept the look, and she didn't have any costume changes, she would have been easier to handle, but apparently not.

[perletwo]

I've a vague memory of being the one to originate the "Hey, it was the '80's *sigh*" coverall excuse for bad design choices - I don't even remember what that was in reference to, now - but this kind of falls under the related meme of "Hey, it was the '90's *sigh*".

[neuhallidae]

Eyup. The Crossing was chock full of 90s-Deodato-Eyepain (the cover to the issue that post was from, OMG. Black Widow has legs of Liefeldan proportions, and I don't even wanna talk about what they did to Hank).

[perletwo]

*nodnod* "The Supergirls" talks about the 90s a lot in terms of "Babes," the Liefield/Deodato/Image Supermodel Look, and talks about the legs getting more giraffe-like and the spines more arched and the faces exaggerated to the point of grotesque as the decade wore on. (Where's that Enchantress panel of bluefall's, where she looks like she's got an extra long bone in each leg?)

[neuhallidae]

I posted that one too. :D

[perletwo]

ohhhh yeah, that's the one. A scrolldown fug if ever I've seen one.

[neuhallidae]

::distracted by the horror of Sarah Jessica Parker's cloven-hoof boots::

[neuhallidae]

HAH, I knew I'd posted it somewhere!

[perletwo]

*peers* Is that Black Widow on Hank's right shoulder? How can she be bending over at the waist and arching her spine simultaneously?!

[neuhallidae]

That is indeed Black Widow. Unfortunately. That looks like it hurts almost as much as the miraculously-not-bleeding-or-burned shot to the chest Jan took.

[perletwo]

Jan sprang for the Kevlar breast implants, apparently...

[demonprawn]

I just now realised Star man has been missing from JSA.

[pyrotwilight]

Aww, you didn't notice? He's like fun crazy but not murderously fun crazy like Deadpool.

[cleome45]

...I see Tiger Woods in Reep's face - the shape of the eyes maybe...

Not an association I needed to consider. [tapes own eyes shut]

[curlyjo1]

I don't read the Superman books, I've just been following the Legion appearances here. Where has Tenzil been?

[perletwo]

He's been in deep cover in the 21st century - Mon-El's foodie friend Mitch, who keeps feeding Mon yummy gourmet treats (way to a Daxamite's heart, y'know) - revealed himself to Mon a couple issues ago by eating a car hurled in the midst of battle. #694, I think; it was posted here, but Doop's banned and the scan is gone from the post now. But if you follow the Mon-El tag, just look for Mitch scenes, that's ME-Lad.

...and I really need to load a generic Legion icon on DW....

[curlyjo1]

Okay, thanks.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

So here's the low-down on "bug Wasp", from someone who (god help me) got into reading american comics in the early-mid 90's.

After the really REALLY cool Bob Harras run of Avengers (with Steve Epting/Tom Palmer gorgeous art), Marvel went into the editorial hell period where different "line" editors replaced the old editor-in-chief position, and each "line" was somewhat separate. So you had a Spider-Man line, an X-Men Line, Marvel Edge (which was basically Marvel Knights-before-Marvel Knights) and Avengers, and a few others.

The problem with this model was that it was based on the assumption that every line could do as well as Spidey or the X-Men, and at this point the Avengers franchise, while a decent seller, was seen as an "old-fashioned" and "not edgy enough" thing, in an era when focus was on comics like Spawn, WildC.A.T's and the post-Lee X-Men.

Long story short (too late), Marvel assigned a number of "hot" talents to revamp the Avengers family of titles. Ellis and Deodato did Thor, Mark Waid and Ron garney did Cap and so forth. So they stuck Deodato on Avengers, and assigned a number of low-talent writers to do an EXTREEEME revamp of the line.

And the result was The Crossing, one of the worst WORST status quo-changing events of all time.

The Crossing was a mess of inconsistently written, badly interlinking, badly written and badly drawn issues telling the story of Kang's ultimate plot against the Avengers. Basically it was "revealed" that Iron Man had -always- been a sleeper agent for Kang, ever since he became a superhero (BRILLIANT) and he went on a killing spree, offing second-string supervillain-turned-hero Yellowjacket, the Avengers' maid Marisa and trying to kill Wasp.

Naturally, as part of the whole thing the idea was to have Deodato visually redesign the team, and somebody thought making Wasp half-bug was the best idea. So instead of dying she went into a cocoon while Hank activated her wasp cells he implanted her with ages ago to metamorphosize her into a wasp-woman (Though she always looked more like a dragonfly to me) with a terrible pink costume (well, usually pink. Inconsistent coloring and art, as mentioned, plagued Marvel comics at the time).

As things turned out, The Crossing did not save the Avengers franchise (wow, surprise) and it was decided to essentially give up, hire back some of the Image founders, push the reset button and send the Avengers, the FF and some others into a whole new universe.

When the madness died down a bit years later, Kurt Busiek who would be the new Avengers writers upon their return, decided that bug-Wasp and teenage Tony Stark were two things he -didn't- want around, and so they went. While a piece of 90's ephemera, bug Wasp -did- get an action figure as part of Spider-Man's line (her FIRST action figure EVER no less).

And there you have it. I don't have a scanner at the moment, unfortunately (or fortunately, seeing the subject matter), so I hope this helps a bit.

[icon_uk]

To be honest I don't see this as a particularly appropriate Espionage Squad. The whole point of the ES was that it was made up of the subtler powers; Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet, Chameleon Boy, Invisible Kid, Triad (in whatever iteration she was at the time). Those who might NOT be best suited to front line combat at times, but who excelled when sneaky stuff was called for.

Love Quislet though I do, it's about as suited to espionage as it is to ballroom dancing.

[cleome45]

Well, as long as you have an illusion-caster along, you can make the more unusual looking people look like anything. Or like nothing at all.

What sticks out for me is the impracticality of announcing, point-blank, Hi, this is my real name and this is the name of my black ops group. File it away, for (literal) future reference, all right? (As seen in the DC preview of this entire sequence.)

I know that a lot of fans complain about the "Name + Superpower" tag-whatsits that we saw with Waid/Kitson. But as a means of bringing the reader up to speed, those actually make more sense to me than that did.

I dunno', though. I'd totally read a story where they all went ballroom dancing. Bonus points for Big Band music. :p