We have gotten a bit more information on two of the newly redesigned Legionnaires that we will be getting in Brian Bendis’ rebooted Legion of Super-Heroes. Unfortunately, it is not good news. A small picture from an upcoming Legion of Super-Heroes comic introducing the newly redesigned Legionnaires hit the internet. The two redesigned Legionnaires that were officially revealed were Princess Projectra and Shrinking Violet. Let’s deal with Jeckie first.
We first got a tiny glimpse of Jeckie’s head in the teaser shot with Superboy being given a Legion flight ring. All you could see were Jeckie’s eyes, tiara, and the top of her white hair. However, I did guess that it was Princess Projectra.
We then got a full face shot of Jeckie in the teaser group shot that Bendis unveiled on the Late Night with Seth Meyers show. This picture gave us a view of Jeckie’s face and her costume from her shoulders to her chest. I was even more certain that this was indeed a newly redesigned Princess Projectra. However, I was hoping that I was wrong and that Jeckie would not be given this new design to her physical appearance.
This new picture gives us a full body shot of Princess Projectra’s new design and officially confirms that this character is Princess Projectra. I am split on this new design. I absolutely hate the grotesque pink exposed muscle look that Ryan Sook gives Jeckie. It is just the worst.
However, the costume itself? It looks fantastic. Sook retains Jeckie’s classic color scheme of red and gold from the 1970s and 1980s. Sook gives Jeckie a red and gold costume with a pink cape. This is like Jeckie’s costume from the 1970s and 1980s where she had a red and gold costume with a pink cape.
Rather than going for a one-piece bathing suit style for the costume Sook uses a corset. This makes Jeckie’s costume look more regal while still honoring the general style of her classic costume. It is an excellent updating of the classic costume that retains the general feel of Jeckie’s classic costume while still delivering something new.
Sook does spice up Jeckie’s classic costume which was, admittedly, a rather simple design. Sook gives Jeckie’s new costume plenty of fancy designs all over the gold parts of the costume. This makes Jeckie’s costume look more formal and regal. It is certainly befitting of a character that comes from royalty. I also love the addition of the gold metal armbands. The addition of the gold flared shoulder pads is also a cool touch.
Sook gives Jeckie some thigh-high boots that are quite reminiscent of her classic thigh-high boots. Jeckie’s new boots have more gold and more ornate designs on them than her original boots. However, her new boots also have the classic gold stripe running up the middle and the classic crowns at the top of the stripes just like her old boots had.
The only negative of this new costume design is the dumb little half gloves that Sook gives Jeckie. Sook gave these silly-looking half gloves to way too many of his newly redesigned Legionnaires.
Overall, Princess Projectra’s new design for her body gets a thumbs down. But, Princess Projectra’s new costume design gets a huge thumbs up.
All right, let’s take a look at the next character who was officially revealed in this picture: Shrinking Violet. Now, we first got a glimpse of this character in the teaser shot of Superboy being given a Legion flight ring. All we could see was her face. Based on just her hair and face I guessed that this was Infectious Lass. No, the character did not have the antenna that Infectious Lass has always had. But, the character had the same hair color as Infectious Lass. And the weird purple antenna-like design on the character’s forehead could have been a modern design take on Infectious Lass’ old school antennas or her violet facial design around her eyes and nose.
The next we saw this character was in the teaser group shot that Bendis unveiled on the Late Night with Seth Meyers TV show. This shot did not show that much more of this character than the picture with Superboy and the Legion flight ring. We did get to see the very top of this character’s costume and one of her arms. Her costume was green. Again, I stuck with my guess that this should be Infectious Lass. The reason being that her hair was still the same color as Infectious Lass and the antenna design on her forehead. Plus, Infectious Lass’ classic costume has green in it.
Well, unfortunately, I was wrong. Even though this character design is far more fitting for Infectious Lass, this character has been officially revealed as Shrinking Violet. I am definitely less than impressed with this terrible new character design for Salu.
During her nearly 60 year history, Salu has always been depicted as white with black hair. Normally, Salu’s hair is long. There was a short time when she did have a pixie haircut. Sometimes, like during the Reboot Legion, Salu would even have a green stripe in her long black hair. Vi’s classic colors are black and green. However, during the Reboot Legion, Vi did rock a purple and black color scheme.
Sook completely abandons Salu’s physical look in favor of a rather ugly design. Sook gives Salu a silly long mohawk that is colored violet. This is reminiscent of Storm when she had a long white mohawk in the 1980s. The only difference is that it is no longer the 1980s and Salu’s long violet mohawk now looks dated and stupid.
The violet glowing design on Salu’s forehead looks equally stupid. Again, this design would make far more sense on a character like Infectious Lass. The hair and the logo on her forehead combine to give Salu a terrible look. It is one thing to radically remake a character’s physical appearance. But, it is another thing altogether to make that new design looks completely idiotic.
Unfortunately, Sook’s design for Salu’s costume is not that much better. Sook relies more heavily on Vi’s classic green color for her new costume. Sook shuns the secondary color of black in favor of multiple shades of green. I have no problem with the use of light green, medium green, and dark green in the place of green and black. The various shades of green all work well together in Sook’s costume design. I also like the addition of violet as an accent color to this new costume. It adds just enough pop to brighten up a costume that would otherwise be a bit drab with just the various shades of green.
Sook’s new costume design would actually be pretty solid if it were not for the unwelcome and completely unnecessary addition of the Jim Lee New 52 lines all over it. These random lines littering the entire costume only serve to give Vi’s new costume a busy and messy look. If Sook reduced the ridiculous lining on this costume by 50% then Vi would have a really nice costume design.
Overall, I give Salu’s new physical look a thumbs down. Vi looks like a silly reject from the 1980s. Sook needs to give Salu regular long hair and junk that dumb logo on her forehead. At this point, Vi went from a character with her own unique look to a Storm knock-off. I give Sook’s costume design a thumb in the middle. If Sook reduced some of the lines all over this costume then I would give this new design a thumbs up.
All in all, this new picture is rather disappointing. It certainly will be interesting to see how warmly received Bendis’ radically reimagined Legion turns out to be. Having said that, in the end, it is not character designs that are going to dictate the success or failure of this newly rebooted Legion of Super-Heroes. It is going to be the quality, or lack thereof, of Bendis’ writing that will determine the success or failure of this newly rebooted Legion.
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