Great Cockrum info.

That certainly deals with the question of how children of mutants with the same powers can still be considered mutants, but not with the problem of the great distinction between Wolverine's mutant powers and his technology--based X--Men fighting skills (just pointing out the fact to anyone who might still be checking this board that my question stands, not faulting you for not dealing with it).

Even though this is supposed to be an LSH rather than an "X" board, let me point out something about the mutant situation in the Marvel Universe that has been bothering me for some time. This is the depiction of them as victims of unreasonable prejudice (or are those last two words redundant?). What do they expect when they refer to themselves as a separate species and call it "Homo Superior"? The bottom line there is B.S., as they can and do interbreed with the rest of us. "Star Trek," et. al., to the contrary notwithstanding, that IS a contradiction in terms, and they are even BORN TO "normals" (please let's not suggest that absolutely fundamental biology is different in the MU than in the real world). Beyond that, to dub themselves "SUPERIOR"---i.e., better than rather than merely different from everybody else---is just asking for trouble. They deserved it, and they got it. That's how it looks to me.

This means that the child of a mutant may have the active X-Gene, and so be a mutant even if they have the same powers as their parent (Syrin or Polaris), or they may not have an active X-Gene and so end up a normal human (Quicksilver's daughter).

Actually, that's not true. According to the interview with Dave Cockrum by Peter Sanderson in "X-Men Companion I" (1982):

Cockrum: "When I became a pro and I was doing Legion of Super-Heroes, I proposed four new Legionnaires and Nightcrawler was one of them. But Murray Boltinoff's response was that he was too weird looking."

It was after only after that rejection that Nightcrawler was added to the roster of Dave's Outsiders pitch which, unfortunately, got rejected as well.

FYI, the other three that were also proposed were Typhoon, Quetzal and Starfire. The Starfire character was actually used but he was named to ERG-1 then later to Wildfire. Typhoon and Quetzal got shuffled off into the Outsiders to be rejected again along with Nightcrawler.

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Anastasios, I did some digging about Trio having four bodies. Turns out she has either three or one, just like Triplicate Girl was originally. You can't tell in this non-colored picture but the front body is the "collected" form that wears a white costume while the other three are the singular forms that wear colored costumes. Kind of like white is all colors of light combined, when she combines her 3 separate bodies, her costume becomes white. Also, her singular form costumes have a solid circle belt buckle design while her collected form's costume has the circular buckle trisected into equal sections as shown in the picture.

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Information on Dave's four Legionaire character submissions and Trio's concept were found here:
http://www.nightcrawler.coolfreepage.com/
contained within scans of Dave Cockrum's original character design sheets and sketchbook pages!!!!

If you read Nightcrawler's writeup, you can EASILY see why he was rejected, and it wasn't just for looks!

Also, I was wondering how Cockrum could use Reflecto as a character but since that team design was done in the early 70's, Reflecto wasn't revealed to be an alternate identity for Superboy in the 30th century until the early 80's. Before then, he was just a statue in the "Hall of Dead Legionaires" in an "Adult Legion" story from the late 60's.

Glad that issues finally settled!

Maybe now I'll be able to sleep peacefully and tear-free at night!

I believe that the possession of traits that came from neither parent still qualify one as a mutant in the Marvel U, even when one is a cross-breed.

See Namor and his power of flight/little ankle wings. And, at least in the most recent issue of WOLVERINE (#44), he's referred to as "Marvel's first mutant."

RD Francis

It's too bad someone hasn't put together a book about the Legion of Super-Heroes to answer all those nagging questions about this-'n-that related to the Legion. But wait! Someone has! Back in 2003, TwoMorrows Publishing released the Legion Companion, a comprehensive tome featuring interviews with just about every living Legion creator about their time on the series. And it's still in print - but just barely! Life isn't complete without it!

He even slipped in as much when he covered the All-Star Comics 5th week event -- the one that set up the most recent JSA series -- in his otherwise wonderful All-Star Companion Vol. 1. (There is no Volume 2.)

Of course, that was the trouble with the Giffen and Bierbaums Legion in general -- great stories if you're doing a "The End" type of story (as it finally turned out to be for other reasons), but the sorts of things that really leave a huge mess for anyone picking things up after they left the title.

Would this be another Urban Legend to look in on?