Profile: Shvaughn Erin

Shvaughn Erin

First appearance: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241, July 1978

Original creators: Paul Levitz, Jim Sherman

History: Shvaughn Erin was a member of the Science Police in the far-flung future era where the Legion of Super-Heroes is set (starting in the 30th century), who served as a liason for the team with local earth authorities. She helped them battle villains during "Earthwar" like Mordru, Dark Circle and the Khunds. She was subsequently written developing a love affair with Element Lad (Jan Arrah) during the Bronze Age period where she first appeared.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in 1992, during what's called the "5 Years Later" period, a curiously large team of writers/artists working on issue #31 of the Legion volume that began in 1989 (Keith Giffen, Tom and Mary Bierbaum, Curt Swan and Colleen Doran), penned a story where Shvaughn was retconned into a transsexual, or more precisely, based on the premise at the time, a man named Sean Erin who disguised himself as a woman by taking a drug called Profem. All that just to serve as an excuse for depicting Element Lad seemingly open to homosexuality, even as the relationship fell apart in the resulting story.

What's wrong with how this was done? Some of the worst things about this divisive story, in addition to how it was being used to promote LGBT ideology, are that an established character was retconned/exploited/abused for the sake of channeling the writers' purported goals, instead of creating a new character to serve the intentions, no matter how much in poor taste they may be. It was also a form of erasing women, and it's strange how there seems to be quite a few supposed advocates for more female representation in comicdom, mainstream or creator-owned, who're actually quite fine with erasing a woman for the sake of a man, in the most contrived ways possible. At its worst, the retcon also has the effect of making Shvaughn look creepy and icky, which is hardly what you'd think the creators' intentions were. But, that's exactly the result, and if an established male character were turned into a woman in such science-fiction stories for the sake of it, that too would be just as unacceptable. Science fiction and fantasy may be an okay place to explore such ideas as sex-switches. But that in no way justifies taking established characters and leading to divisive situations the audience can end up being revolted.

I'm very disappointed with the late artist Swan, who was one of the most well regarded Superman artists of his time, for willingly taking part in such an icky "project". Even if at the time, it wasn't intended as a political statement, it's certainly been hijacked since in some ways, and it had been done today, it's chilling to think the retcon would stick, no matter how badly it would tarnish the original stories.

I'm guessing the editors allowed this because the Zero Hour crossover was in the works around the corner, and so they intended to jettison it anyway along with quite a few other established characterizations up to that point. But regardless, that doesn't mean the relation between Element Lad and Shvaughn Erin should have to end on such a sour note, laced with creepiness and ickiness. That was a slap in the face to the fandom, and the worst part is how, in years since, only so many "woke" advocates want to refer to a character who'd never been depicted as transsexual in any way when she first debuted as though she were, and it'd make no difference to them if a whole bunch of established cast members had been retconned similar to how she was, because what we're talking about here is a generation where certain people are taught to believe everything's "their" property to determine what'll become of it, and if they want it changed to suit their beliefs instead of create their own ideas, so be it. I can only wonder what the original creators think, because if they refused to object, that was a huge mistake that's since enabled more woke abuse of this sort.

Was there anything good to come of this? Thankfully, in 1994, in one of the very few good things to occur during the Zero Hour period, when the Legion's continuity was rebooted, the female-to-male retcon was jettisoned and retconned away, and Shvaughn was restored to her original biological sex, though as depicted in the series going forward, Element Lad was younger again while Shvaughn was several years older, apparently because the writers decided to discard what had previously been written up in the Bronze Age.

In the end, it's wise to recognize that all these "developments", "establishments" and "retcons" are just pencil and paper, and what some pretentious modern writer concocts doesn't literally "prove" an established creation is this or that in their original incarnations from the time they originally debuted. Let us be perfectly clear: Shvaughn Erin was created as a biological woman, and bizarre subsequent retcons alone don't prove otherwise. What matters is whether writing - and artwork - are in good taste, to say nothing of organic, and the 31st issue of the 1989-2000 Legion series wasn't any of those things. It was just an embarrassingly bad wrapup to an era in writing prior to a crossover event (and one that came several years after Crisis on Infinite Earths) - apparently the only way DC is capable of reworking continuities, and Marvel today has also gotten to that point - that SJWs since have sought to hijack for their own selfish purposes, the real fandoms be damned. It also symbolizes a lot of the problems with corporate-owned franchises, and how they're much more vulnerable to "social justice pandering" than creator-owned products are. Legion fans who really care about the creations shouldn't let such reprehensible abuse of fictional creations go unaddressed, though in an era where much of mainstream comics fandom has since abandoned DC/Marvel, it's admittedly a moot point.

And it's also shameful how more creative concepts like emphasizing ethnic/national backgrounds, like being of Irish/Scottish descent (Shvaughn Erin's name sounds like it draws from such backgrounds), are repeatedly thrown out the window for the sake of this woke humilation. If the writers had wanted to, they could've developed a story about Shvaughn studying her Irish heritage and cultural traditions, including dining on colcannon salad and even playing bagpipes. Instead, they degraded her for the sake of modern PC. Seriously, I think all involved in that 31st issue of the 1989-2000 Legion series owe an apology for their creative bankruptcy.