- This ties into Executive Meddling in the original continuity. Jim Shooter originally intended for Ferro Lad to be black, however Mort Weisinger vetoed the idea afraid that DC would face backlash in the South. Unhappy that he was unable to do what he originally intended with the character, Shooter decided to write out the character with his now legendary Heroic Sacrifice. The Legion wouldn't get it's first black member until Tyroc in 1976... which was also a sore spot with creators. Shooter was unhappy that Tyroc was a black character instead of a character who happened to be black and Mike Grell thought the explanation for why there were no black people (they all lived on an interdimensional island) was horrifically racist and intentionally gave Tyroc the worst design he could think of as protest.
Tyroc's costume was many years before Marzal was retconned to be an interdimensional island. And Wikipedia quotes the sentences where Grell said that as two separate quotes, without there necessarily being a connection between the racism and the costume, and without the word "interdimensional".
Edit: I don't have the book these were quoted from, but even without the "interdimensional" part, that isn't right. The island was populated by blacks, but the comic never said that there are no blacks anywhere else. It's true the Legion was mostly made up of whites and aliens, but the island has nothing to do with explaining that away, and in fact they never did bother trying to explain that away.
The interdimensional part was actually part of a retcon which explained why Tyroc acted like a Jive Turkey.
Edited by arromdee
Moved.
Also, here's a link to the original page's discussion, since we can't move those:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/archived_discussion.php?s_t=Main.TheLegionOfSuperHeroes
This page's text is far too long and includes things which are really trivia in the long run.
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