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Jim Shooter's Plans For A Trans Member Of The Legion Of Super-Heroes

Jim Shooter's plans for a trans member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and why they didn't come to pass

In 2007, the late Jim Shooter returned to DC Comics to write the Legion of Super-Heroes again, after 31 years. However, the run was heavily edited and truncated, with the final issue having no declared writer, just Jim Shooter saying it wasn't his draft that was published. Years later, he would run his original pitch document. And in the light of certain statements made about Shooter on his passing, it is interesting to see that one of the scenes cut by DC Comics from his final issues would have established the Legionnaire Invisible Kid, usually portrayed as a young man, as a trans woman.

The Invisible Kid, Lyle Norg, was originally created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney for Action Comics #267 in 1960. Jim Shooter originally wrote the character back then along with the rest of the Legion, the character was revealed to be gay in the backmatter decades later, in a relationship with Condo Arlik, Chemical King, but never really followed up on the page.

Returning to the Legion Of Super-Heroes in 2007 for Legion #27, Jim Shooter began a long running story which would lead to Invisible Kid transitioning and changing her name to Stealth. While the set-up was published, the final reveal was not.

From his accepted pitch document, he writes of Brainiac 5 bringing back the Legionnaires from being digital versions of themselves.

"B-5 brings 'em back. But are they "real" or Memorex?  B-5 argues that natural bodies are constantly being reconstructed/renewed.  Does it matter if it's the exact same hydrogen, oxygen et al atoms (which are transient anyway) or that it's exactly the same atom-by-atom physical structure that their consciousness, souls, whatever, inhabit?  That question will linger….

"Invisible Kid's new body is really new—he is now a she!!!  A girl!  And a hot one at that!  IK arranged with B-5 to borrow gender factors from, um another encoding to change him.  The outside, the sheathe of flesh is different, but the inside, IK's essence/mind/spirit, whatever, is as it always was.  And now, the outside matches the inside better.  Call her Stealth or Covert.  She looks sort of like…a lot like Gazelle.

"Gazelle is freaked, yet again.  IK/Stealth wants to talk.  G bounds away.

"Stealth finds Gazelle on a high terrace.  Stealth approaches her.  If Gazelle really doesn't want to talk, okay, but S feels she owes her an explanation and well, everything, frankly.  When IK first saw G, he was fascinated.  He finally sorted things out and realized that she was what he wanted to be.  With B-5's help, it was possible.  He went for it.

"G is pondering, thinking a zillion miles a minute all through Stealth's speech.  G seems to reach the threshold of understanding.  G asks if S can control his…uh, her metabolism like she can.  Nope.  B-5 counteracted the anomaly for S.  S figured that was G's thing, so….  Are you saying that B-5 could have CURED me? G asks.  And no one gave me that option?!  Stealth gulps.  It was sort of assumed that everyone would want to be exactly as they were…except for me, S says.  And, to me, Stealth says, you're so perfect…one in a trillion.  Who wouldn't want to be you?  S certainly did.

"Gazelle thinks for a while.  Maybe it is okay.  What seemed so bad on Triton is…okay here.  She fits.  At last.

"Friends? S asks.  Friends, says G.  They hug."

Like people keep saying. "Complicated".

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