Support for the LGBT Community

What a difference one day can make. As of noon today the official White House website was updated with details of President Barack Obama's administration. Under the Agenda section 1,225 words describe policy priorities for Civil Rights in which 756 of those words are dedicated to a section “Support for the LGBT Community”…

• Expand Hate Crimes Statutes
• Fight Workplace Discrimination
• Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples
• Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
• Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell
• Expand Adoption Rights
• Promote AIDS Prevention
• Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS

Legionnaires on Smallville!

Last night three Legionnaires made their debut appearance on the CW's Smallville adding their decades of Superboy comic book history to the series mythos. My favorite Legionnaire has varied over the years, due to who was writing their story and how I related to the characters at the time. Saturn Girl (Imra Ardeen), an alpha class/10th level telepath, has always been among my top three favorites. I enjoyed seeing Imra portrayed by Alexz Johnson and the reactions she stirred in the often introverted angst driven characters of Clark and Lana who are unaccustomed to sharing their innermost secrets in a single episode. Typically their secrets are kept under the guise of protecting those closest to them, but usually results in emotional collateral casualties, for multiple episodes if not seasons.

I also enjoyed seeing Cosmic Boy (Rokk Krinn) and Lightning Lad (Garth Ranzz) synch up their magnetic and electrical generation powers to create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) powerful enough to take Brainiac offline. The EMP combo feat was something that was never featured in any of the 50 years of Legion History. Kudos to Geoff Johns for coming up with the idea! Maybe Johns will consider writing an Elseworld where Rokk and Garth use their EMP combo to defeat Computo and spare Triplicate Girl from her Duo Damsel fate.

The Legion flight ring was shown to have new time traveling powers in the opening and closing scenes. After the founding trio defeats Persuader he is transported back to the future upon removing the ring he had stolen. At the conclusion of the episode, Kal-El is given a modified ring that does not grant flight, but gives him the ability to travel to the future by concentrating on the year 3009. The highlight for me had to be when the Legionnaires raise their fists in unison battle cry, “Long live the Legion!” as space and time distorts to carry them home.

As a long time fan of the Legion of Super-heroes, eight seasons was too long of a wait for Kal-El (Clark Kent) to meet his super-pals from the future. It also occurs to me that during this time Smallville has had little to no openly gay presence. This lack of inclusiveness stands out for me because the first openly gay character in mainstream comics was Maggie Sawyer (captain in the Metropolis SCU) in the Superman comic book series. Maggie was protrayed by Jill Teed in four earlier episodes in seasons 2, 3, 5 and 7, but no mention of Maggie being a lesbian was ever made.