LEGIONNAIRES 13 & 14

Writers: Mary & Tom Bierbaum
Artists (Issue 13): Frank Fosco (Pencils), Waid Von Grawbadger (Inks), & Ron Boyd (Inks)
Artists (Issue 14): Chris Gardner (Pencils) & Dennis Cramer (Inks)
Cover Artist: Adam Hughes
Published: April & May 1994

Background - Legion of Super-Heroes as a franchise is often criticized for being overly 'complicated' in its continuity. And while there are certainly a few... road bumps throughout its long storied history (most of them caused by outside factors like editorial mandated Crisis events and company wide relaunches) I personally have never found it particularly difficult to get into. All of its various relaunches have fairly clear starting and stop points. And exploring the various incarnations of the Legion of Super-Heroes is a very rewarding experience.

That being said, these two issues take place during a period that needs a little bit of explanation. So bear with me. Back in 1989 Paul Levitz, having wrote Legion of Super-Heroes regularly since 1981, stepped down to let Keith Giffen , returning iconic Legion co-writer and artist, take a crack at writing Legion of Super-Heroes. This newly relaunched 4th volume of LoSH would be a depature from the traditional concept of the Legion. Five-years having passed from the end of the previous volume this new, and more grown up, Legion would face assassination of their former comrades, a stealth invasion of Earth by the Dominion, and eventually the complete destruction of the planet Earth leaving humanity to survive in an interconnected series of massive space stations.

During all of this, a second group of Legionnaires were introduced. Known as the 'SW6 Batch', they were the Dominators' secret weapon. Clone duplicates of the Legion of Super-Heroes, brainwashed to fight for the Dominators once they had complete control of Earth and the United Planets. As it happens the brainwashing program was interrupted and the SW6 Batch was released. These Legion doppelgangers had the physical appearance of the classic teenage Legion of Super-Heroes. These disoriented teens would be dumped in the middle of open war with the Dominators on Earth. Some were killed while trying to save lives. Others had awkward run ins with their adult counterparts.

As Legion of Super-Heroes vol, 4 neared its 50th issue Keith Giffen exited the title leaving co-writers Mary & Tom Bierbaum to take over full time writing duties. At this time it was decided to launch a companion series to LoSH, titled Legionnaires. While LoSH would continue to tell the stories of the adult Legion introduced in Legion of Super-Heroes Vol.4 #1. Legionnaires would be about the new Batch SW6 teen Legionnaires finding their feet. This new series would capture some of the youthful enthusiasm of the early Legion of Super-Heroes comics had, which the adult Legion got to deal with adult problems.

Legionnaires would end up being a testing ground for a major Legion of Super-Heroes reboot to occur with the early 90s DC event Zero Hour where all of previous Legion continuity would be wiped out. Legionnaires would only run 18 issues in the previous continuity before Zero Hour, then would continue until issue 81 staring the new Legion reboot team.

Clear on all that? Don't worry, its not really that important to the TG related story elements contained within.

Gender Blender Elements - While the A-Plot of this story deals with a number of Legionnaires dealing with anti-alien hysteria going on as a result of Earth's destruction at the hands of the Dominators, elsewhere Legionnaire Kono, introduced as a new character in LoSH Vol.4 #1 as part of the new Adult Legion, has a secret mission that requires the talents of Tenzil Kern. Aka, Matter-Eater Lad. As his code name suggest Tenzil has the ability to literally eat anything. He's also a complete egomaniac totally in love with himself, and often gets easily confused when he's not the center of attention. Kono needs Tenzil to help her infiltrate a crew of vicious space pirates who originate from her home planet of Sklar. There's just one problem, Sklar space pirates are universally female as part of their matriarchal culture.

Getting some of her Sklarian friends to help, Kono dolls up Tenzil as a Sklarian and inject him with the Gender-Reversal Disease, a virus that results in temporary gender reversal in anyone infected by it. Clueless as always, it isn't until Tenzil wakes up the next day, and the virus has taken its full effect, that he realizes what has been done to him. Complaining about how uncomfortable bras and boobs are 'Tenzi' and Kono travel to make contact with the space pirates, using manufactured backgrounds to be recruited. After making contact the pair arrive aboard the pirates space craft. Kono gets assigned to gunner duty, while Tenzil get stuck on trash detail. His ego getting more bruised by the second, Tenzil make a number of boneheaded flubs when it comes to his fake background. This gets the attention of the ship's crew, and its not long before Tenzil is staring down the barrel of a gun.

In the next issue Tenzil has been captured, strapped to a gurney, and examined. The pirates realize to their horror that not only is she not a Skalarian, but she's not even female! They start debating whether they should just kill him, or sell him to flesh slavers for a tidy prophet. While they're arguing Kono comes to the rescue, using her mass altering powers to make the pirates weapons to heavy to hold, then broadcasting a signal to her Legion teammates and the Science Police to come get them. During the confusion of being boarded Tenzil gets arrested along with the rest of the pirates. The story ends with the pirates locked up in a holding cell going crazy while Tenzil keeps babbling about his exaggerated exploits as a super-hero.

Final Verdict - Conceptually, this isn't a bad little diversion. The Legion has a history of these sorts of humorous side stories. The fact that this one has to do with gender-swapping is really just icing on that cake. Unfortunately its never really goes far enough to really explore the ramifications of gender-swapping, or even titillate. In truth, the best part about this story is the brilliant Adam Hughes drawn cover of issue 13. It promises a lot, but doesn't really deliver. Issue 13 page 19 is probably my favorite single page, where we get to see Tenzil all dressed up and complaining about his situation. And it might be a nice looking page too, if it wasn't hampered by some really mediocre coloring. I really wish I could find the uncolored original artwork for that page.

This story is probably one of more infamous gender-swap tales to come out of a major publisher (with that Adam Hughes cover really making it stand out), and they aren't expensive to track down.