From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: LSH: New version number wanted 
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 04:15:50 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.224103.1@fnalo.fnal.gov> morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (Dan Elmoe) writes:

>	Validus's origin was hardly a retcon, considering that he had never had
>an origin prior to v2 ann 3. And Laurel Kent is tied into the overall Superman
>retcon that was forced upon the Legion.

Tied in, yes, but I think unnecessary.  Remember, Levitz had shown a
marked tendency to try and ride things out, preserving as much as
possible.  (Hence the occasional, unexplained statue of Supergirl in
the scenes with statues of dead heroes, or the refusal to retcon away
the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps just because in the 20th
century it appeared that the former were gone for good and the latter
made impotent by the destruction of all but a handful of rings.  )
Here, I think he was clumsy.  Sure, the Superman team probably had the
clout and the motive to ask Levitz to dump Laurel.  But all he really
had to do was have her "softly and silently fade away"-- she wasn't
really an integral character (sure, she had a fling with Sun Boy, but
who didn't?  :-) ) If she simply stopped appearing in the Academy
scenes, it would have been trivial to cover it over later with a story
about her leaving for some reason or another, if the time came when it
was possible to revive her.  (If not, she was hardly integral to
anything except the "Who shot Laurel" storyline, which had no real
lasting effects, and could simply be ignored.)

	Instead Levitz did, essentially, what the Bierbaums are now
being pilloried (justly, IMHO) for doing in the Lightning Lad retcon
(though to a much less important character, to be fair).  Laurel was
simply a thousand year old Manhunter who had been able to act
perfectly in the role of Superman's invulnerable descendant.
Including a vulnerability to Kryptonite, and being able to fool 30th
century medical scanners while allegedly unconscious.  And then, with
that wonderful, perfect masquerade, she throws it away for _no good
reason_.  She didn't have to do it to go search for the New Guardians'
base-- she was a trusted friend of the Legion with an obvious reason
to be interested in 20th century history.  All she had to do was get
them interested in it-- or, failing that, ask permission to use their
resources to help track the Chosen down.  She'd waited a millennium--
she couldn't take the time to look subtly, so that she wouldn't blow
her hard-won cover?  No.  It was a stupid plot, done as a stupid
tie-in to a miniseries which should have had no repercussions on the
Legion anyway, being as further from them than the Battle of Hastings
is from us.  LSH was roped in for whatever reason, and like everyone
else had to come up with a character to throw away as a Manhunter
(though some, like Superman, cheated by having humans with
subconscious Manhunter mind-control used on them).  So they chose
Laurel Kent, not because she was the least important character which
could have been used (in a cast the size of LSH?), but because Levitz
had to get rid of the Superboy tie-ins anyway, and this seemed like an
easy way out.  It was-- it just wasn't a very good one.

Mike
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Workers of the world, forgive me.
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 You had more to lose than I thought."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Karl Marx (1990) as imagined by
mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Jim Koncz (konc@midway.uchicago.edu)