Thursday, January 12, 2023

Flashback: how old were the Reboot Legionnaires supposed to be?

As the podcast is just now starting to get into the Reboot timeline, I thought this post might be relevant to resurrect (here's the original).

This came out over on the Compuserve Comics and Animation Forum. Back in the olden days, many of the comics creators were active on the moderated message boards (and to some extent on the unmoderated Usenet newsgroups). Among those on Compuserve were many Legion creators, including Mark Waid, Tom McCraw, Kurt Busiek, and Jeff Moy. This came out around the time of the zero issues, in response to questions about the various members ages.

Tom McCraw, writing to Mark Waid for confirmation, suggested these. Waid read it and never commented on it. Since we're doing a re-read, I will post the relevant panels as we see their ages (as of May 2994).

Forum:  Comics/Animation+ Section:  Comic Books
Subj :  Legionaires #0
To   :  Mark Waid Saturday, September 03, 1994  2:06:23 AM
From :  TOM McCRAW #679086

MARK,
In response to Juliana Kristi's question on the age of the Legion members I've  listed below.  Mark, You may correct me if I goof on someone.

Cosmic Boy -     Rokk Krinn  age 15
Saturn Girl-     Imra Ardeen age 15
Live Wire -    Garth Ranzz   age 14
Apparition -     Tiny Wazzo  age 15
Triad -        Luornu Durgo  age 16
Leviathan -       Gim Allon  age 17
Kid Quantum -   James Cullen age 16
XS -           Jenni Ognats  age 14
Invisible Kid -   Lyle Norg  age 16

On Chameleon and Brainac 5 I'm still trying to figure out the math on Coluan and Durlan timelines. (and it's making my head hurt.)

Hopes this helps anyone who wants to know.
Tom

From Legionnaires #0, page 2, panel 2, we get confirmation of the ages of the founders.

From the new Omnicom pages in "LSH: The Beginning of Tomorrow" TPB, here's Luornu's age. Either she just turned 16 after this page (published May 7) came out, or they revised her age down from 16 to 15.



I later (in 1995) asked Tom about the other Legionnaires who had joined since the above was written. 

Forum:  Comics/Animation Section:  Comic Books
Subj :  LSH CMMTS - LSH #76
To   :  Michael Grabois Wednesday, November 29, 1995  1:51:22 PM
From :  TOM McCRAW #1062756

Michael,

Here are some additions, even if they aren't Legion members yet or not.

VALOR-              Lar Gand age 18
GATES-        Ti'Julk Mr'Asz age 18
SPARK-            Alya Ranzz age 14
KINETIX -         Zoe Saugin age 15
ANDROMEDA-       Laurel Gand age 16
SHRINKING VIOLET- Salu Digby age 14 (almost 15)
Chuck Taine                  age 16
STAR BOY         Thom Kallor age 16
Lori Morning                 age 10 (even if she doesn't look her age)

No word on Cham yet, noone can really understand him except Lyle and Brainy is very vauge about his information.  Quote:  "Why does it matter?"

Hope this helps and let me know next time you want another up-date.

Tom

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to let you know that I enjoy reading all your entries. I know there's not always a lot of feedback and I just thought you should know that I appreciate your efforts. (ever since the AR lists actually.)

IDLE

Michael said...

Thanks for the kind words!

Hard to believe this has been going on (in some form) since November 2005, that's 18 years (minus the hiatus from 2012-2019). I've still got some good stuff planned...

Jim F said...

Thanks for reposting this. I tried finding this on the Usenet archives and it's a challenge.

Given the timeline, I wonder what the start date was for Tom calculating the dates, specifically for Violet. Her canonical birthday is June 3, so she would be almost 15 at the beginning of the timeline but already be 15 by the time she joined.

But I'm just splitting hairs. 🙂

Michael said...

I'll keep track in here with how old they are presented to be in print. No ages in LSH #0, but we are given Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl as 15, and Live Wire as 14.

Jim F said...

Also regarding Luornu, it must have been an age revision. Of they kept Lu's canonical birthday in October, she wouldn't have turned 16 until around the time Chuck took Vi out on a date. Happy birthday Triad. 🤣

Of course that issue has a character give a date in December 2998, so...