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There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: Part of the appeal of the Legion for me in most versions has always been its relative isolation from the rest of the DCU.
Word. My first true WTF moment in Legion fandom was when Laurel Kent turned out to be a Manhunter robot that had someone glitched out and triggered 1000 years too late.
So. Freaking. LAME!
quote: Honestly, I was pretty surprised that so many people who have been critical of Waid's run on the Legion seemed to embrace the Lightning Saga storyline, when it seemed to suffer from many of the same flaws that have made the threeboot seem so lackluster for so long.
99% of my enthusiasm came from the visuals. These characters *looked* right. And in some cases, such as Wildfire and Dream Girl, were acting like the Legion I remembered as well.
There were differences, such as Val being alive, and mysteries, such as the rift between Dawnstar and Wildfire (which even Wildfire seemed to question), but they just piqued my interest in seeing more of this Legion. After all, I never expected the writers to pick up after Baxter issue 39 or whatever and just start over. I'm quite comfortable with things having happened since I last saw them, things which will be explained over time (such as Val's assertion that his friends 'saved him' somehow, an event we haven't seen *yet,* but has been established as having happened sometime between our last visit and this latest appearance).
Will things be perfect? No. Comet the Super-Horse may well have been retconned out of Legion continuity. Universo may be Imra's cousin. Chemical King may have not joined the team, *yet.*
quote: *Nota bene: I could care less about the JSA as a training camp for New Earth legacy heroes or whatever as well. The JSA belongs on Earth-2 and closely tied to WW2, dammit!
I loved the WW2-set JSA stories (and the Invaders ones from that other company), but that era is over, and I'm fine with the name continuing on with legacy heroes. If anything, it's a sign of the ultimate victory of the original JSA, that their descendents are around to take up the fight.
Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Something from a couple of pages ago that I really should have responded to at the time:
quote:Originally posted by Kent Shakespeare:
quote:Originally posted by Matthew E:
quote:Originally posted by Kent Shakespeare: [QUOTE][qb]In contrast, while Lightning Saga in JLA/JSA did not pay off as we'd have liked, we have seen greater moments than Threeboot has offered.
Name one.
"You were kids." "No. We were Legion." two panels or so beat more than two years. TKO.
You're right. That was a great moment*.
For Superman.
* As was, "They were my friends." (Also Superman.)
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I ended the last post with "Kid Prime's DC point #1: Nothing exists in the DCU." I now realize that I was in error. There are two things that will always exist in the DCU as long as there is a DCU. (Possibly three.)
Jor-El sends his only son to Earth to escape a dying planet Krypton.
Bruce Wayne witnesses the brutal murder of his parents at age 8 in a dark alley.
(There is the possibility that Wonder Woman leaving Paradise Island could be considered a third ineffable item in the DCU makeup, but we'll leave that alone, as it really has no bearing on this conversation.)
I posit that the "realness" of anything else in the DCU is in direct relation to its amount of distance from either of these two events.
There will always be a Joker. There will always be a Lex Luthor. Even as they change over the years (Joker goes from being the Clown Prince of Crime to a truly murderous and insane criminal, Lex Luthor goes from being an evil scientist to being a corporate magnate) their essence and their reality, as opposed to the relative insubstantiability of, say, Sovereign Seven or Amethyst, remains intact throughout the years. I do admit that the relative weakness of Superman's rogues gallery as compared to Batman's villains somewhat weakens my position, but the very fact that Toyman is still around after 50 years does say something.
Anyway, now to my point. Superman (or Superboy) gives the Legion of Super Heroes stronger DC Universe reality. He does not give them meaning or necessarily even give them worth as far as good storytelling or emotional impact, but as far as their viability within the DCU over the years, it is their close orbit around one of the DCU's twin points of true reality which gives them life.
And why not? One of the most compelling things about the Legion is the fact that it was Superman's time with them in his younger days which truly helped to forge himself into the hero he would become. It is a truly powerful mythology, and it gives the Legion a huge part of their grandeur. To think that today, Superman is unparalleled as a hero, but 1000 years in the future, he was only a single member of a club whose members each in their own way were every bit as heroic as he... that's a POWERFUL legend there, and that is a large part of what the Legion is about.
However one feels about Johns's ability as a writer (or hack,) re-linking Superman with the Legion of Super Heroes in the way that he has done ("We were Legion.") is quite possibly the strongest thing that has been done with the group and the strongest Legion-related moment yet in this new century. So Matthew, I have to respectfully disagree with you. That moment with Superman was big for him, but it was absolutely huge for the Legion as well. Not because the Legion needs Superman for great storytelling or to be a great team, but insofar as their level of "DCU reality," the closer they are to Superman, the more real they are.
Now this creates a paradox in that I do believe the LSH is and should be completely or mostly separate from the DCU other than their relationship to its number one icon, but that's a good topic for another time.
Kid Prime's DC point #2: The closer to Batman or Superman you are, the more real you are. This means Lightning Saga -> renewing ties between Superman and LSH = good thing. This also means (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) that the Lightning Saga is more "real" than the Threeboot Legion simply by virtue of its orbit around Supes.
-------------------- White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So... many... possibilities.
From: Birmingham, AL | Registered: Jul 2003
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That's some really good thinking right there. Nicely done.
I still say, though: it may have been a great moment for the Legion, but it couldn't have been a great Legion moment, because the Legion wasn't there.
After all, just because it's DC's standard that reality emanates from Superman and Batman, that doesn't mean that Legion fans have to be primarily fans of Superman. If you get what I'm trying to say.
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KP, thank you for bringing a fresh level of clarity to the table.
Matthew, I am not going to argue at length the semantics over the "We were Legion" moment, but I obviously agree with KP. And the Legion was there in flashback, as I recall -- and it was a comic book - no one was there, and there was no "there" there. Lines on a page to which we interpret meaning.
EDE, I'm not familiar enough with Johns' other works to rank him in the overall scheme of things, but in certain ways your Waid comparison seems fair.
I gave Waid a chance, based upon previous projects I liked (KC, 90s Flash, off the top of my head), and based upon Barry's assurances here on LW. I truly hoped that a well thought out, well written, well drawn Threeboot would be a success and reinvigorate LSH and fandom. Of the above, only Kitson's art was consistently good. I am aprpreciating the fill-in run, and I hope to enjoy the Shooter run.
I did not knock Waid for the sake of knocking; I expressed disappointment based on his track record as it became apparent the post-#3 slump was becoming the norm.
I do not believe Johns is the perfect writer, nor have I been 100 percent thrilled with everything he's done that I've read. I am simply not rushing to judgement, just as I did not with Waid. The less than satisfying ending to L-Saga was a strike against him, but he has shown more than enough likeable aspects to continue to give the benefit of the doubt.
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Awkward Pause Boy: I'm sorry, DC/Geoff Johns, but we cannot admit you into our Original Super-Hero Club! Your low score on the continuity tests we gave you proves your proposal is too imperfect!
Tromium, this means you're Saturn Girl.
Heaven forefend! These days, more like Monstress with PMS.
From: Reimagined Trom | Registered: Jul 2003
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Forgive me if this has been posted before, I found 5 preview images of Action #859 courtesy of vdox2 over at CBR,(apparently he found them over at a Italian messageboard.)
posted
The Action #859 pages are up on Newsarama as well, and there's one more page (the last one is a 2 page spread, and the prior website link only showed the first 1/2).
So this Justice League is all from Earth, and they are out to get all alien heroes (presumably even Earth heroes who harbor/associate with non-Earth heroes, like Wildfire or Colossal Boy).
-------------------- Craig C.
- Time travel stories are told in chronillogical order.
From: Santa Ana, CA | Registered: Jul 2003
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If I remember correctly, Sussa Paka was from Earth and transported to Taltar where she got her powers. (Edit: Ah. I didn't see others had already replied about Sussa's origins as I was writing this). ------
Matthew made a good point a couple of pages ago: I *would* be disappointed if the "new" Legion was heavy with gorey images. There seems to be a lot of it lately in DC comics and that's one "modernization" I could do without.
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Imho, they are not trying to make the Legion, not yet at least, a part of the "main" DCU. Let's not forget that they've only appeared as guests in other titles and it's not like they never visited the 20th century before. The Legion has been there in most *big* Crossover series since the Crisis. I think they are trying to reintegrate the adult Legion in the DCU by emphasizing their link to Superman. Their very existence is intertwined to Supes. It's more like "getting back to basics".
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"Second coming" was a joke, of course, but in a way it IS a coming back of a "dead", for all intents and purposes, adult Legion and continuity.
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Let me remind you guys that there are a lot of us who simply don't accept any "my Legion against your Legion" mentality and like all of them on their own merits. Having a personal "focus" on one Legion version does not preclude our liking all of them, not does criticism of one Legion era/version necessarily stem from a "my/your" mentality. Not everything was great about the classic Legion (there have been terrible stories and art), nor everything is great in the WaK or 5YL or Reboot Legion. I feel we are not sports team fans, we all love ONE team, and any dichotomy is silly and immaturely fanboyish, in my opinion. (I've seen very little of it, if at all, in this forum. Thank Rao!) -------------------
Having said that, my reaction to those pages in the link Mon-El posted was one of amazement! They look GOOOOOOD! (OK, Saturn Girl doesn't look like she jumped off the cover of this month's French ELLE magazine exactly, but the Legionnaires are fugitives, hunted, hated, tired). And yet they look GOOD!
[ November 20, 2007, 05:10 PM: Message edited by: Dain ]
From: Somewhere in the Multiverse | Registered: Apr 2006
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