Pride Profile: Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass. Vi and Lightning Lass are a prime example of a time in comics when two women could be a couple, without being officially coupled. Salu ‘Vi’ Digby, a Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney creation, dates from 1961’s Action Comics#276, while Ayla Ranzz, the twin sister of Lightning Lad, came along in ’63 thanks to Edmond Hamilton and John Forte. Both spent years as part of the Legion family saving the universe, falling in love with one of the guys, and going through traumatic personal events. By the mid-1980s, this shared history of trauma brought them closer in books first written by Paul Levitz. Through different series and multiple writers, the pair were often drawn in close physical contact, confiding in one another, and professing their admiration and affection. But, an unseen line was never crossed, there’s no confession of love, no kiss, no true romantic moment. And yet, most of their writers and many of their fans considered Vi and Ayla to be a loving couple.
The neat thing about this coupling is that while their strongest moments happen around the “Five Years Later” era that was erased when the original Legion came back into continuity, that coupling was the one thing that stayed. While again there weren’t anything that officially said they were a couple during the Retroboot era, they did frequently hold hands, went on vacations together, lived together and shared a bed, so…
Hey @Stevenkivel.33794, welcome back. I’m gonna call in the leader of the Legion club @Don-El on this one, though the Levitz run is my favorite I don’t have a good handle on which issues highlight Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass
Here’s a nice article that points to you to the various story lines over the decades of these two:
We spend a lot of time in the club debating which is our favorite version of the Legion, and how the relationship between these two is shown is definitely reflected in those different eras… Frankly for almost all the issues with these two, they are women that are developing a friendship until some of the last issues after New 52 launched around 2011. Like a lot of Legion characters, there are long stretches of years where they disappear entirely due to continuity relaunches.
Shrinking Violet does not appear at all in the most recent version of Legion that Brian Bendis wrote since 2019.
I thought it strange that BMB, who seemed eager to embrace different qualities in the NEW Legion chose not to pay homage to one of the first (arguably the first) LGBTQ+ lovers in comics.
Oh boy that’s also really a volatile discussion on the other platforms and here too. Basically Shrinking Violet was utterly ignored by Brian Michael Bendis during his run, along with other pretty key characters.
Bendis Legion of Super-heroes was the biggest let down in comics I seen in years. It never really felt like it was going anywhere and not one Legion of Super-hero member stood out to me except maybe aesthetically. The incredible art is it’s only selling point.
Pride Profile: Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass. Vi and Lightning Lass are a prime example of a time in comics when two women could be a couple, without being officially coupled. Salu ‘Vi’ Digby, a Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney creation, dates from 1961’s Action Comics #276, while Ayla Ranzz, the twin sister of Lightning Lad, came along in ’63 thanks to Edmond Hamilton and John Forte. Both spent years as part of the Legion family saving the universe, falling in love with one of the guys, and going through traumatic personal events. By the mid-1980s, this shared history of trauma brought them closer in books first written by Paul Levitz. Through different series and multiple writers, the pair were often drawn in close physical contact, confiding in one another, and professing their admiration and affection. But, an unseen line was never crossed, there’s no confession of love, no kiss, no true romantic moment. And yet, most of their writers and many of their fans considered Vi and Ayla to be a loving couple.
