BAB Classic: Every Color But Black: Legion of Super-Heroes 216

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #216 (April 1976)
"The Hero Who Hated The Legion"
Cary Bates-Mike Grell

Note: This post was originally run on January 6, 2010.

Karen: Doug and I are both big Legion fans, and we've discussed a number of Legion stories we'd like to review. We have reviewed a few stories over in our old blog (Two Girls, A Guy, And Some Comics), but we only looked at Silver Age stories, not Bronze Age. And for us, Bronze Age is really our favorite era. Legion was the first DC comic I began reading regularly, shattering my former Marvel zombie existence. I loved the Legion and its fantastic, futuristic adventures. So it might seem odd that I'm inaugurating our Bronze Age Legion reviews with a comic I can't stand.

Doug: I'd echo your sentiments, Karen. Legion was probably the DC I was most committed to; I did pick up Teen Titans, Batman and Detective, and Secret Society of Super-Villains, but Superboy and the Legion was always the book I'd take over the others if and when I had to choose.

Karen: Legion #216 introduces us to Tyroc, the first black Legionnaire. Ordinarily, such integration is something I would applaud. But this issue is so incredibly myopic and insensitive, that it's all I can do to keep myself from throwing it across the room. Even when I first read it at the age of twelve, I knew something didn't smell right, even if I couldn't exactly explain why.

Doug: Being MUCH younger than you, Karen (I was only 10 when I read this), I also recall thinking this was a bit strange. I'd been brought up in the era of busing and instructed by my parents that a person was to be valued regardless of skin color, religious persuasion, etc. So this separatism was strange to me.

Karen: You see, dear readers, in the wonderful Earth of the 30th century, it seems that all black people have segregated themselves to an island, so they can avoid everyone else -whom they apparently hate. As a tour shuttle driver says, "Below is the island-city of Marzal, an independent, totally self-sufficient community...populated by a black race that wants nothing to do with the outside world!" Ooh, a black race! Wow! It makes them sound as if they aren't even human.

Doug: Say what you will about the Legion reboot in the 1990's, but they created Legionnaires who weren't humanoid. It seemed like back in the Silver Age the only thing they could do to differentiate sentient "races" was to alter skin color -- green, blue, orange, etc. This "effort", and it comes off that way, to "diversify" the Legion was so forced and flagrant... and it continued just several months later with the introduction of Dawnstar. So I guess then they had "red" skin, too. Bro--ther...
Karen: The Legionnaires -Superboy, Karate Kid, Brainiac 5, and Shadow Lass - head to Marzal to recover a downed satellite, which actually contains stolen jewels. A group of thieves is also after the jewels. On the island the Legionnaires encounter only hostility from the residents. A native hero, Tyroc, who has strange (poorly defined) sound powers, crosses paths with both the Legion and the thieves. He makes it clear he wants nothing to do with the Legion, and feels the Legion has ignored the people of Marzal when they were in need, possibly because they are black.



Doug: I thought it was hilarious when Brainy interupted Cosmic Boy and offered "the plan", only to be shot down with a rebuke of "Not so simple, Brainy!" How often do you suppose that ever happened?? And Tyroc... I agree. We don't understand his powers and are given no background. He states that he is Marzal's champion, but do others among his "people" have similar powers? Is he a mutant? Does his costume somehow give him his voice abilities?

Doug: Additionally, I just really think that scribe Bates was pinning responsibility for the problems of blacks in America squarely on the blacks. The separatism, while at the same time blaming the Legion of all of Marzal's ills, seemed to fly in the face of LBJ's Great Society. I realize we were almost a decade removed from that by the time this saw the spinner racks, but still.

Karen: Tyroc infiltrates the thieves. They find the satellite only to discover it has become lethally radioactive. Exposed to the deadly radiation, a struggling Tyroc signals Superboy with an ultrasonic whistle. He seems surprised that the Legion would help him. We then get an unbelievably lame statement from Superboy about how the Legion is "color blind! Blue skin, yellow skin, green skin [pointing to Shadow Lass, Karate Kid(!), Brainiac 5]...we're brothers and sisters...united in the name of justice everywhere!" Tyroc decides he's been wrong about the Legion and will take them up on their offer to try-out for the team.

Doug: Pretty quick change of heart, don't you think? Didn't it seem to say that no matter how screwed up you think we've made you, we can still make you better -- hey, you need us! It was almost like the Legion was the ticket out of the ghetto.

Karen: I guess Tyroc could be "validated" by joining the right-thinking Legion! Just how in the world did anybody at DC think this was a good story? It's interesting to note the comments of artist Grell in a recent issue of Back Issue magazine (#33), where he says of this story, "Every couple of months I would pester them: when are we going to do this black Legionnaire? Finally they came up with one of the sillier powers I ever saw: Tyroc's. I'm surprised they didn't name him Tyrone, because the ultimate explanation for why there were no black people ever in the Legion of Super-Heroes...all the black people had gone to live on an island. I wonder what Martin Luther King would have to say about this? Weren't these people alive in the 1960s? Were they completely unaware of the civil rights movement?"

Doug: Grell tells similar stories in The Legion Companion from TwoMorrows, as well as Back Issue #14. He does contradict himself as to his original intent, which was to have a guy-gone-bad who happened to be black. In BI #14, Grell suggests that it was in Superboy #207; in The Legion Companion, he says it was in #210 ("Soljer's Private War"). Whichever it was, he was told by Murray Boltinoff that if they had a black character who was bad, they'd catch a ton of grief from their black readers. Grell contends that he protested, left the art the same, and the figure was merely colored pink instead of brown. According to Grell, anyone who looked closely could have told what was going on. Grell was assured that a black hero was in the works, and that he would be in the Legion. According to Grell, he was basically handed Tyroc and told to design the costume.
 
Karen: As you mention, there's this bizarre implication that the problem resides with the black people of Marzal alone - that they are the ones who are prejudiced and overly-sensitive. It sounds like the kind of argument you often hear from people who say racism and prejudice are over-exaggerated problems. You know, the same sort of people who claim they aren't racist by saying, "Some of my best friends are black (or Asian, or Hispanic, etc)". Or the Louisiana judge recently in the news who refused to marry inter-racial couples but said he wasn't a racist, that he even let black people use his bathroom! Gee, how open-minded of him.

Doug: But the thing about stereotypes is that at some point they're true -- do you think that's what Bates was after? But that should never be the focus -- labeling, classifying... And that's exactly what this book did. You and I have both stated that even as youngsters we felt something wasn't right. But how many other impressionable young minds didn't catch on? Did this book do damage in the era of busing and integration? Hey, the race riots in America's high schools (I recall my aunt being released early from school several days because it wasn't safe to be there) were only a couple of years old at this time.

Karen: I honestly don't know what Bates was going for here. I've never read much of his work, so I don't know if this is unusual for him or what. It just comes across as idiotic.

Karen: Grell's costume for Tyroc is a hoot, looking like nothing less than a odd mish-mash of Vegas Elvis and Isaac Hayes (with cute little elf booties thrown in for no apparent reason).

Doug: Yep, in one of the sources I read Grell likened it to a cross between a Vegas Elvis suit, a pimp, and Fred "the Hammer" Williamson!

Karen: Hey, I think we have another candidate for Fashion Disaster!


 
Karen: The back-up story in this ish involves former Legionnaires Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel, and more than anything, it made me feel uncomfortable, as it sort of hints about what married life is like for a couple that can instantly become a threesome. I guess now I know why Duo Damsel was always showing up, despite her incredibly useless -for combat anyway -power. I heard that now she can make tons of duplicates. I don't even want to think where they could go with that idea.

Doug: Duo Damsel and Jamie Madrox -- there's a party! Ahem. Just kidding! But hey, despite my claim of enlightenment on racial separation, I have to admit that this one went right over my head. I just thought Chuck Taine was a big pansy! But, now that you mention it...