Now that the original continuity is over, let’s analyze how its membership changed over the years.
Why, did you think I kept track of the membership only because I like analyzing meaningless statistics?
Some clarifications on how I’m approaching this for the various eras:
PRE-HISTORY
By later standards Superboy and Supergirl should probably be considered reserves for the early stories, but officially the concept of reserves doesn’t exist yet so I’m considering them as full members from the moment they join. The same goes for Star Boy.
Supergirl would be counted among the rejected members today, since she has several appearances between her rejection and her joining, but to keep consistency I’m starting the rejection count from the Hamilton run.
HAMILTON RUN
Remember that I’m counting Dynamo Boy and Command Kid as actual Legionnaires, so they’re the first death and the first resignation respectively.
So with that in mind, this is how I’m classifying the Legionnaires:
-Total number of historical members
-Active members
-Dead members
-Reserves includes the honorary members
-“Inactive” includes everything else: expulsions, resignations, sick leaves, presumed dead
And finally, the count is taken at the end of the year.
Also, you can click on the images to see a larger version.
ACTIVE MEMBERS
The first big jump is already in the pre-History, when membership rises from the original 4 all the way up to 15.
It receives a second bump during the Hamilton era, which brings 1963 up to 20 active members.
The peak is in 1968 and 1969, between the Shooter and the Action Comics eras: that’s when we reach 26 active members. This is never surpassed.
Membership remains somewhat stable, excluding a decrease to 20 members in 1984 due to the shenanigans of the pre-Crisis Volume 3.
The final two years are absolutely brutal, ending with 17 active members.
RESERVES
Same graph with the addition of the reserves (which includes the honorary members).
They’re remarkably stable once the concept of reserves is codified in the 70s.
DEAD MEMBERS
Same graph with the addition of the dead Legionnaires.
You can see that, besides Dynamo Boy in 1965, Ferro Lad is the only death all the way up to 1973, then increased by just Chemical King and Invisible Kid.
The succession of Volume 3 and Crisis brings it to 11 deaths by the time Crisis is over, and by the end of the era the dead Legionnaires are just SLIGHTLY below the active ones!
INACTIVE
This is the graph that includes everything else. Notice that for the VAST majority of the Legion’s history this is basically nothing: the first one I’m counting is Command Kid as an expulsion, joined by Nemesis Kid as a second expulsion… and those two are the only ones not in any other category all the way up to 1978!
A few get added here and there, because they’re either busy in a subplot or they are Tyroc.
Once again a brutal spike between 1988 and 1989 when a bunch of Legionnaires get shoved aside.
TOTAL LEGIONNAIRES
This is the comparison between active Legionnaires and the total number of people who have been members, which peaks in 1985 because Princess Projectra is temporarily counted TWICE, as herself and as Sensor Girl. Once we learn who she is, the total count is re-adjusted.
Notice that up to 1962 they’re exactly the same number: that’s because I’m not distinguishing between active and reserve this early, as the concept has not been codified yet.
Once again the pre-history provides an incredible 15 members, and it takes only from 1961 to 1968 to reach 35 historical members by the time we’re in the Shooter era.
By contrast, there are just TEN Legion members introduced from 1973 until 1985 (eleven if you count Projectra twice).
BOYS AND GIRLS
The Legion is notable among superhero teams for having an unusually high percentage of female members!
Even more surprising for the Silver Age, female membership rises very early: almost yearly, even!
Obviously Saturn Girl debuts in 1958 and there are long gaps between Legion stories, but you add girls in 1960 (Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl), 1961 (Supergirl, Shrinking Violet), 1963 (Lightning Lass), 1964 (Dream Girl), 1966 (Projectra), 1967 (Insect Queen) and 1968 (Shadow Lass). Then as part of the 70s general slowing down of adding new members we have few additions: 1977 for Dawnstar, 1982 for White Witch, and in 1985 Sensor Girl is temporarily added until we learn she’s Projectra.
REJECTS
And finally we have the graph keeping track of the Legion rejects, when compared to the total historical members.
The first official rejects are counted from the Hamilton era, during which an incredible 28 rejects are introduced between 1962 and 1966.
Rejects go out of fashion for a long time: Shooter never liked the concept so he doesn’t add them, which means that from 1966 all the way up to 1972 there are NO new additions.
Then it gets a couple of bumps up to 38 rejects during the Superboy & LSH era, but then once again from 1977 to 1980 there are no new additions.
You can see that the number of rejects GENERALLY follows the direction of the total historical members, receiving a final push in 1985 when I’m counting several minor rejects that barely get any screen time and some who don’t even get a name.
As a bonus: as we have seen the Legion had a remarkable number of female members for the Silver Age, but how do they compare with other superhero teams within the same period?
Take this section with a grain of salt, as I haven’t researched it as intendively.
Starting with the two teams older than the Legion: the Justice Society and the Justice League.
Of course the Justice Society is ahead by having Wonder Woman and Black Canary in the Golden Age, but they have to wait 1976 for Power Girl to become the third woman.
The Justice League doesn’t kick off until the 80s, helped by the fact that I’m also including the members of the Justice League International.
I’m not counting All-Star Squadron because its ridiculous amount of retcons makes it hard to figure out how to count they years.
The Teen Titans start when the Legion already had 7 girls in their historical members, and they only catch up by 1983 thanks to The New Teen Titans.
The Justice League’s low number of female heroes is best shown by the comparison with the Fantastic Four. Even if the JLA is the older team and it typically has double the active member, the FF hold their own for a very long time.
Speaking of the active roster: you might think it’s unfair to compare anyone to the Legion, who typically has twice the active members of most teams.
But the only teams who challenge the Legion are the Avengers and the X-Men, and ONLY because I’m including in the count both the West Coast Avengers and the New Mutants.
Notice the X-Men more than double its female membership in the early 80s, while the Avengers have a steady increase.
Just for fun, even if they’re not supposed to be an actual team, the Defenders.
Even if it’s a mess in this format, here’s the sum of all graphs.
Three things of note.
One, the first team to have a second woman in the team in the Silver Age are the Avengers, with Scarlet Witch joining in 1965.
Two, you can see the 70s is when having female superheroes really kicked off, doubtlessly due to the influence of Women’s Lib. Although it takes a while to have teams with more than one woman serving in the same roster.
Three, doesn’t this REALLY put into perspective the anomaly of the Legion?