30 Days of Scans Day 28 - Favorite Canonical Romance

[generator_rex]

So I have two favorite cannon romances and they both are from The Legion of Super-Heroes.




First up is Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl (Duo Damsel/Duplicate Damsel. The reason is because I though it was awesome. Bouncing Boy was the chubby kid who scored the hottie. And they worked. I hated the version that dated the three guys at once.





Next is Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. I don't know why I like it. I just do.

Comments

[shanejayell]

Despite being retconned I liked Violet/Lightning Lass.

[q99]

They retconned that? :(

[kamino_neko]

Looks it. They're certainly not together in current continuity, and Ayla has been shown to be with, or have recently broken up with, Timber Wolf (who she was with before the 5 year jump)...and quite a bit of other stuff from even earlier than that has been retconned, so...

Chuck/Lu and Dawnie/Wildfire have also been broken up, apparently, but the latter is explicitly broken up, and gods only know what's going on with Chuck at all. Current Legion continuity is CRUEL to my favourite 'ships.

[q99]

Ah, so it just kinda got caught in the retcon storm.

[cleome45]

Am I the only one who's, er, somewhat aggravated that the Archie-verse is now officially more evolved regarding Teh Gay than the Legion-verse is?

[q99]

:\

That's just wrong.

[icon_uk]

As someone said about the Archie situation, the first gay character is easy, it's when you introduce their boyfriend/girlfriend that things get tricky. It's alright to TALK about being gay, it's being SHOWN being gay which gets the prudes in a tizzy.

[cleome45]

True. But I really wish they'd get on with it. If I can handle other "grownup" things in comics that I don't even care for-- throat-slitting frenzies and entire galaxies blowing up and the like, I'm pretty sure I'll be okay with it if Sun Boy decides to start going out dancing with other dudes, or whatever. :/

[doomisay]

Chuck and Lu are not only still married, but returned recently from a renewed honeymoon, showing that Lu had gotten her powers ramped up (I guess based on Una's death in Countdown).

[kamino_neko]

Where did this return happen?

Adventure is set before either joined, and there's no sign of either of them, let alone both, in Legion.

[icon_uk]

Adventure is set before either joined

Not sure how that could be? Triplicate Girl was the first member to join after the three founders.

[kamino_neko]

I had originally included some weasel words about the early Legion timeline being awful confusing...should have kept them.

[icon_uk]

Early Legion history was well established in "Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes", Triplicate Girl was the first to join, followed shortly thereafter by Phantom Girl.

[kamino_neko]

Never read that...actively avoided it, in fact, since I never heard of it until I was in the middle of a beginning-to-end binge of every Legion appearance, and there's only so many times one can read the same story retold in a couple of months.

[cleome45]

This might come in handy, too. :)

[doomisay]

End of Lo3W, if I remember correctly.

[kamino_neko]

Hmmm. I guess you're right. Since that was when all the Legions were showing up to help, I took that as a retcon of their earlier selves, not current - even getting rid of his bearded look, wouldn't have expected Chuck to look EXACTLY like he did, originally, when everyone else is getting updates.

[perletwo]

I dispute the Dawny/Wildfire breakup - they're pretty much just status quo star-crossed, I think. This is from Adventure Comics #4, after they've taken Blok to find the White Black Witch and Blok agrees to stay and help her contain the evil magics she's absorbed from Mordru:

[kamino_neko]

Looks pretty broken up to me. Neither of them is happy about it not working out, but the fact remains that it didn't work.

[perletwo]

Huh. I read it totally the opposite way, that they were still committed, however doomed. Guess it's a glass half full/glass half empty kind of thing.

[kamino_neko]

Guess it's a glass half full/glass half empty kind of thing.

Kinda, yeah. It just reminds me of a couple break-ups I've had - 'I still love you, but this isn't working, and that's killing me'.

I'm not discounting that they could get back together in the future...

[perletwo]

Part of what led me there is that they're drawing a deliberate parallel between themselves and Blok and Mysa, earlier in the story.

Mysa's made an unimaginably difficult and painful choice, to make herself the crucible that changes all Mordru's dark magic to light; but the bright side is she and Blok can be together if she does. In fact, she needs Blok's love and support to make it possible. Blok doesn't give it a second thought, or even a first thought - he loves her, and he's with her.

In my reading, Drake is saying, if he were in Mysa's position and he had an option, however horrible, that would let him be Dawny's lover, he'd do it; and she's saying she'd take Blok's part and be his partner in that choice. Trouble is, the universe (and Paul Levitz) seems determined not to present them with one.

[kamino_neko]

In my reading, Drake is saying, if he were in Mysa's position and he had an option, however horrible, that would let him be Dawny's lover, he'd do it; and she's saying she'd take Blok's part and be his partner in that choice. Trouble is, the universe (and Paul Levitz) seems determined not to present them with one.

Yeah, see, glass half-empty, glass half-full. I'm reading the exchange in pretty much the same way, but coming to a different conclusion.

The 'could', specifically, leads me to the opposing interpretation - the choice that Blok had to make was not an ideal one, but it's the only one he could make to be with Mysa. So, for the parallel, if there was anything Drake could sacrifice that would allow him to be with Dawny, he'd sacrifice it, and she knows it. But, there isn't, so they're unable to be together.

If they were together, I would expect the exchange to be 'if I had to', not 'if I could'.

[shanejayell]

As far as I can tell it was canon for just 'original' Legion and the first reboot introducing Valor. Other versions, no. *sigh*

[silicondream]

Yep, as of Zero Hour. That's when we lost Element Lad/Sean (formerly Shvaughn) Erin, too.

Oh, and Winath stopped being nudist then, IIRC. These are all sad things.

[q99]

I consider that kinda different; in ZH we got a new set of Legion characters different from the old ones, but the old ones were still together with whomever offscreen and such.

[silicondream]

Well, but in ZH the entire old cast was deleted along with its timeline--there was no multiverse back then, after all, so they didn't really have an offscreen to retire to.

To my mind, when they brought back the old cast for the current version but re-re-retconned away the Five Years Later era, that was just adding a few more nails to the coffin.

[q99]

To me, it felt like the old characters were 'retired.' Ditto when the threeboot came around.

Bringing the old characters back but altering them somehow feels worse.

[lieut_kettch]

Yay Vayla! I do hope those two get together in the current incarnation of the Legion.

I also like Threeboot/Prime Brainy and Nura. Especially since the majority of the courtship occurred in Brainy's head.

[cleome45]

I was (and am) too old school to get much out of that pairing. :/

Also, I hear some fans raised holy Hell about Thom being Black, and I'm kind of glad I wasn't around for the uproar if it was true. I don't think it shows my fandom in a really good light.

[shadowpsykie]

i dont think it was rectconned... its still the same legion, but Ayla always liked both Timber wolf and Vi, Ayla was Bi, so i think unless they officially/explicitly stated she and Vi, are both straight, she just chose TW over SV

but i know what you mean... i want gay Invisible Kid/Chemical King :( isnt Chem, alivie now? he was in teh SB Adventure story line wasnt he?

[shanejayell]

Unless they explicitly say Ayla/Vi happened, I'm assuming it was retconned.

Not being negative, but I don't want to get my hopes up too. *lol*

[kamino_neko]

The Legion has so many awesome 'ships.

GarthXImra, ChuckXLu, JeckieXVal, DawnstarXWildfire, ViXAyla (which interestingly lead to an awesome 'Elseworlds' annual), GimXYera... Element LadXShvaughn/Sean would have been awesome if there weren't so many levels of fail in the reveal of Sean.

[barnesarama]

Rokk & Lydda were always pretty awesome in the preboot Legion.

[retro_nouveau]

Heh, the Legion is a shipper's candy store.

[icon_uk]

IIRC The Bierbaums introduced the retconned concept that Triplicate Girl's bodies had had different personalities and had each been attracted to different guys which made her affection for Chuck a little on the diffused side, and one of them may have had an affair. Must see if I can dig out the LSH RPG handbook which covered it, there's a nice excerpt from Luorno's journal which tries to convey the sense of loss that she felt.

[okkult3000]

I spent an unconscionable amount of money to get that RPG handbook second-hand. It was worth it.

[big_daddy_d]

These two pairings. YES! Thanks to the Legion animated series, I became a Bouncing Boy fan and hey, if big man can get the hot girl, I'm all for it. It's a known fact, ladies love big man. :D

[cleome45]

Too bad that Element Lad/Monstress could never be. It would be nice to see the reverse just once somewhere in Comic Book Land. :/

[icon_uk]

What happened to those two is one more reason I flatly deny the existence of the entire DnA Legion run..

[cleome45]

I only read tiny fragments of it and I was still all :(.

[windiebird.livejournal.com]

Awww! See, this is why I need to get into Legion of Superheroes! Love to see my big guys getting a little love (or, obviously, a lot of love).

[superfangirl1]

The first image is adorable and nice choice.

[jaybee3]

Legion has a lot of great romances and I actually like that some of them span several universes to the point where a writer tries to screw it up - in the case of Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad for instance i.e. Proty being Garth all along (which Levitz has seemingly ignored now), Archie Legion Imra mind-controlling a comatose Cosmic Boy into being her boyfriend almost marrying her, Shooter having Threebot Imra having a quickie in the closet with Ultra Boy (later quickly retconned into only being on a "mental plane" despite the fact she was caught naked) because she was depressed and insecure and LL wasn't around, etc. I dunno like couples that are actually happy and work at being so.

[cleome45]

I could live with some lack of happiness if it wasn't for the continued popularity of creepy non-con overtones.

As to the non-con business with SG/CB, I'm torn between wanting Levitz to explain that at some point Imra relented, undid the mindwipe, and dealt with the consequences-- vs. NEVER wanting to have to think about the whole thing ever again.

:( Gah.

[jaybee3]

I didn't like that either (and I think Levitz knew people wouldn't like it). I imagine wouldn't have ret-conned that event into happening unless he was going to bring it up later so if it's going to come out I would much rather it be during the early years of the Legion in Adventure then doing the "current" timeline of the Legion in the LOSH title. Imra and Garth seem to be OK in the regular book and still on good terms with Rokk so if she told them both in the past what she did it obviously didn't effect anything. If Levitz is holding it back so it all comes out 10+ years later then the story sucks even more.

[recognitions]

I'm pretty sure everything from the Five Years Later timeline has been bucketed.

[icon_uk]

In fairness, the ZH Imra and Comatosmic Boy manipulation was entirely unintentional, Imra didn't realise she was doing it until it was pointed out to her.

The recent mindwipe case has much more unpleasant implications.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I know little about Legion romances, but I agree, BB and TG/DD are adorable together. Always nice to see a pairing where at least one side is not the typical movie star type.

[hero_of_lallor]

I am a devout follower of the first Legion romance, and still the best!

[jetwolf]

The Legion has some truly great pairings, which just takes the space kids soap opera to glorious heights. My LSH OTP though has to be Jo/Tinya. Damn I love them, no matter what crazy 'boot we're on.

[recognitions]

Interesting that Thom/Nura weren't mentioned. Thom was so needy in the original run.

I'm leaning towards Val/Jeckie as my favorite. Two ultracompetent, constantly reliable characters in an ongoing relationship. Of course it was doomed.