Legion of Super Heroes is a comic book series, originating in the late 50s, which features a team of high-powered humanoids that fight supervillains and show that people of different planets can work together. (If this sounds like a less angsty version of X-Men, you're right; Dave Cockrum was with Legion first, then grimmed-up the ideas for Marvel.) As a little girl I loved that one of the three founders was female (and when it's only three founders it's going to skew one way or another), and that the leader of the main gang of villains (the Emerald Empress of the Fatal Five) was also female. And the women had to pull the same weight as the men! So why, decades later, is Legion focusing so much on the male characters - and why did McDonald's carry this sexism a dumb step further?
Legion has changed hands repeatedly over the years, and suffered a lot from DC "reboots", where they start the story over again from the beginning, with contemporary twists. Eventually they "rebooted" away the kitschy names - Shadow Lass became "Umbra", Phantom Girl became "Apparition", etc. This diluted the charm, and it seemed that when the Legion of Super Heroes Animated Series went back to the Lass-style names that it meant they'd be doing the old-school stories (instead of the angsty material that increasingly pervaded a book also increasingly having trouble finding readership). Season 1 was tolerably faithful to the canonical material (and quite watchable considering it was aimed at 7 year olds rather than young adults), but as the episodes flew on, the writers introduced more and more male characters with minimal bolstering of the female ranks.
Element Lad, Star Boy, Colossal Boy, Blok, Tyroc, Sun Boy! And in exchange, only Shrinking Violet, and a sexy underpants-wearer literally called Dream Girl (who admittedly can predict the future). Where were Shadow Lass, the White Witch, Light Lass, Princess Projectra, Dawnstar? Why did we have a big handful of extra male characters without gender balance, and why does Season 2 promise at minimum an extra (cloned) Superman and Chameleon Boy, and no apparent new women? And why did they originally intend to make the animated series Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes but then decide to go with Superman instead?
Even more stupefying is the new line of McDonald's Happy Meal toys promoting the Legion DVD release. McDonald's has eight toys: Superman, Timber Wolf, Lightning Lad, Brainiac 5, Bouncing Boy, Mano, Tharok, and Validus. There no women - leaving out founder Saturn Girl. The last three on the list are actually villains from the Fatal Five, yet their female leader is absent! Worst of all, the "girl toy" offered as a Happy Meal alternative is a fuzzy dress-up "Build a Bear" that is not only entirely unheroic, but seem to be aimed at toddlers rather than anyone who can form a complete sentence. Brainfreeze noted her Bratz-loving, glitter-wearing eight year old, offered one, "replied scornfully 'I'm not a girly girl!'"
Are girls not "interested" in superheroes? Bull. I had a whole set of She-Ra figures, and dressed up as Princess Projectra for Halloween when I was six. The popularity of Xena, Buffy and Alias demonstrate that kickass women are just as good a deal as men. If McDonald's thinks it can't sell girl superheroes, it's not doing it properly - and if the sexism was originally suggested by the Legion series, it's doing a disservice to our children. This is purely unimaginative marketing and in addition to being despicable, it's costing them money.
I've wanted a Legion action figure ever since I was six, and when I heard about the McDonald's tie-in not only was I primed to go buy my faves, I was delighted to think Legion might finally break out into the mainstream. But the other bad news is that apparently that even for Happy Meal toys, the Legion dolls are crap. "He's tiny, totally unjointed, and virtually unplayable," complains Brainfreeze. I didn't check them myself; once I heard half my planet wasn't being represented I put away my wallet. Maybe next spring, if the rumours are true about Mattel doing a quality line of figures. But maybe not, if it's no longer a pleasant nostalgia trip, and has become yet another childhood experience that grew up to pump gas and pick its nose. [Camille]
Camille Dumas doesn't normally get het up about comics, but this one used to be special, and she's pissed off.
See also: Crappy Meals don't like Girl Super Heroes. | Brainfreeze: Comic Love: Those McDonald's LSH Toys | Project Girl Wonder
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Because happy meals are for small CHILDREN and have always been divided into what small GIRLS typically want and small BOYS typically want. The girls gift is Teddy Bear Factory which is what SMALL GIRLS would typically prefer. In addition, manufacturers pay good money to get those items into the hands of their target demographic, not to expand the thinking of society at large.
Oh and let me add: Reactionary DOOFUS.
Gray -- Happy Meals (or the toys at least -- I love me a teeny burger to this day) are indeed toys for children, but why in the hell does it have to be gendered? It wasn't always this way -- in the 80s the toys appealed to BOTH genders without forcing kids into a "you are ___ you like ____". There's a list of Happy Meal toys by year here: http://www.geocities.com/enchantedforest/6176/index.html
This isn't just a "what makes money" question -- why are we as a society literally buying-in to these preferences?
They aren't genetic. I have a friend whose son loved Barbie, and was mortified when the server asked his mum if she was buying "the BOYS toy or the GIRLS toy?" He didn't see it as gendered -- he just liked the Barbie, not the Hot Wheel!
His mum, bless her, had the presence of mind to say, "I want the BARBIE and there is no need to call it the GIRLS toy"
I am a father of three daughters, and grandfather of five boys, and three girls. Two of the boys are into the build-a-bears, but I'm not buying the Legion of Super Heroes toys for them, I'm getting them for me. And yes I am dissapointed that McDonald's chose not to include all of the Legion. Let's just hope McDonald's comes out with a second set of figures soon.
Ah, if there was a girl one people would be up in arms about the way it reinforced unattainable body image to youngsters.
(Why does everyone link to Camille's site lately? I'd love to see it firsthand but it's been nothing but broken PHP errors for me for a couple weeks now?)
Girls do love girlpower too. It's too bad there aren't a lot deep female heroes and what about GirlyGeeks and ECO Geeks.
My daughter and I found this great series. Check it out. Girl Power with heart! My husband loves the stories too. I think heroes are for everyone and we need more girl centered stories too!
Girl ECO heroes. Not sure McDonalds would like these girls, but they ARE GREAT STORIES.
http://www.gaiagirls.com and here is a great review of book II in the seven book series.
http://www.curledupkids.com/ggwwater.htm
Here's to more girl heroes,
M. Brown
I’m the author of a collectibles book on fast food toys (Kiddie Meal Collectibles — look me up on Amazon), and I agree with you on this, I love these toys, and go way out of my way to seek them out. Too bad DC/MickyD didn’t think to include some female superheroes (hey, even us guys like girl heroes!), but there have been other fast food superhero sets that HAVE included the gals.
For some comments I made to The Wall St. Journal on this very subject a few years back, go here (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2002/04/mcdonalds-angles-for-loyalty-of-little.php) and read more (my comments come at the end, but much of my chat with the reporter formed the basis for this article.