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CHARACTERS |
ELEMENT LAD & SHVAUGN ERINReal Name: Jan Arrah
Occupation: Super-hero
Group Affiliation: Legion of Super Heroes
Base of Operations: 30th Century Metropolis
Gender: Male
Orientation: Other
First Appearance: Adventure Comics #307
Outed in: Legion of Super Heroes #34, volume 4
One of the first clues (and the one that longtime Legion readers were ready to pounce on) was ADVENTURE COMICS #326 (November, 1964). Light Lass (under a hypnotic command from Queen Azura from the planet Femnaz (!) seduces Element Lad, and his thoughts were "I'm… er… out of my element when it comes to romancing girls." The next time Jan was seen "with a woman" was ADVENTURE COMICS #373 when he was seen at an airborne drive-in movie with a girl (Marya), but once his Legion signal comes in, he doesn't seem to mind leaving her stranded at the drive-in.
In all the adult Legion stories, Jan was established not to have married. The question if Element Lad was gay was posed at a DC panel at the DC Con in February, 1976. DC staffers never said no, rather pushed onto the next question. In September of that year, in the second mailing of LEAPA (which changed its name to INTERLAC with its fourth mailing), Paul Decker wrote a fan fiction story "No Time" with a sex scene with Element Lad and Matter-Eater 
Lad. In the following mailing, longtime Legion writer Jim Shooter outlined his characterizations of each Legionnaire and gave the assumption Jan was indeed gay, for the earlier "clues" from Adventure Comics, the fact that he seemed unwilling to repopulate his race (Trom's inhabitants were killed by the space pirate Roxxas), the very phallic costume Dave Cockrum designed for him (with the huge arrow sticking right out of his crotch), and well, just because he was always so darn cute. Legion fandom came to accept this as fact, as uncountable fan fiction has been written about Element Lad in hot-and-heavy scenes.
From that point on, no DC writer seemed willing to rock the boat one way or the other till Paul Levitz. Paul was well aware of fandom's firm belief in Jan's sexuality but angered many by including Science Police Officer Shvaughn Erin as a potential love interest. Nonetheless, the relationship seemed to be more spiritual than sexual, with Erin definitely the pursuer. It took Tom and Mary Bierbaum in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 
#34 (fourth series) to rectify the question. In the dark future the story was set in, it was revealed that Shvaughn Erin had been born male (Sean) and took a futuristic sex-change drug called Pro-Fem in the belief that was the way to win Element Lad's heart. In the economically crippled era, Pro-Fem was no longer available and Shvaughn soon reverted back to Sean. As the panels here show, it didn't faze Jan, it was the person he loved in any case. When last shown, the couple went off to explore space together. (Someone looking suspiciously like Jan turned up in BOUND AND GAGGED #59 but only as a spectator.) In the post-Zero Hour continuity, Element Lad has yet to be linked with anyone, male, female (or reptile) and Shvaughn is now established to be considerably older. What gender Erin was born with has never been stated.
Element Lad has the power to change one element or compound into any other element or compound. He is able to change the elements of his own body as was shown in Adventure #331.
Characters are © and ® of DC Comics. Used without permission.