posted
S P I O L E R S . . . . . . (I don't know how to do the little spoiler dimension thingy, sorry.) Since the REBELS Brainy already has a son, I'm not sure what's the issue (pun intended).
I just hope that 3boot Brainy's appearance doesn't mean that he's the one they kept. He way too much like the Brainiac we've already seen in .LEGION.
Boy, this Crisis stuff just has me so confused!
-------------------- 'In the twinkling of an eye' I'll be dancing in the sky!
Come, join me!
From: Salem, Oregon USA | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Nightcrawler: SUPERMAN #295 (January 1976)...I've been trying to convince the L3W readers of this fact for months.
It's right there in 4 colors and drawn by Curt Swan and (another guess) inked by Don Heck. I see your point, it would be awesome to see that incorporated into Lo3W.
From: Smallville Sector : Greater Metropolis | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Wow, the silhouette certainly could be Xenofobe(that is a funny name for an alien GL)...there's plenty there that Johns is playing around with right now. GLs, the Time Trapper, Superman, the Legion...and epic battles.
Hmmmm....Nightcrawler, do you know if Cary Bates wrote that story? Johns is a pretty big Cary Bates fan. If Bates wrote that story I'd say that increases the odds of Johns using that story or at least being influenced by it.
I'm still leaning towards Cham though because we know there are Legionnaires running around in the past with a purpose...Tellus, Starboy, and just where is Cham anyway?
Plus, we know they are giving Legion Fans a lot of incentive to read Superman and Action right now and Cham is one of the most popular Legionnaires. Throwing him into the Action/Superman mix could only aid them in that quest.
I will say something that has always struck me as funny about some Time Travel stories...when the character is in the past he's not there in the future, as if being in the past is just another geographical location in the future. While it's certainly true that being in the past could be a reason for a characters absence depending on when they return...they could also return to the future the instant after they left, with virtually no time passing and without being absent at all...
It is kind of funny when they make them absent.
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Of course mysterious antennae guy could also be another Green Lantern...the Durlan male from LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES ANNUAL Vol. 1 #1 (1982) -
From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Jul 2003
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Silver Age Lad
Part-time member living in another century
posted
quote:Originally posted by Nightcrawler: Of course mysterious antennae guy could also be another Green Lantern...the Durlan male from LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES ANNUAL Vol. 1 #1 (1982) -
Green Lanterns aren't time travellers
From: Ancient Kingdom of Northumbria, UK | Registered: Aug 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Superboy: I will say something that has always struck me as funny about some Time Travel stories...when the character is in the past he's not there in the future, as if being in the past is just another geographical location in the future. While it's certainly true that being in the past could be a reason for a characters absence depending on when they return...they could also return to the future the instant after they left, with virtually no time passing and without being absent at all...
It is kind of funny when they make them absent.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SanDimasTime Probably the most common type of nonsensical time travel in fiction. It does treat time more like a 4th spatial dimension. The strange thing about it is, in many universes and stories that use it, it's never part of the mechanism of time travel - it's just how the story happens to go.
The pre-Crisis DC Universe often used this, and combined with predestination, this meant that time travel wasn't very significant at all. Which is probably how the writers got away with using it all the time. Time travel that can alter the past is too big an element to incorporate in a series not entirely devoted to time travel.
-------------------- Tom Strong, on nostalgia: "I suppose it's a ready substitute for genuine feeling." - Tom Strong #6, Alan Moore
From: Calgary, Alberta | Registered: May 2008
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quote:Originally posted by doublechinner: Rocket Cat -- cool name.
From what I remember, the first few issues of the original L.E.G.I.O.N. (boy, is that a pain to type) were great from a character and mythology perspective -- they built on the excellent Invasion event, and really brought the space environment of the 30th century Legion into the 20th century DCU, to great advantage, and gave us a lot of good stuff, especially on Colu and Durla. There was some good comedy too. If you go back and read those issues, you will see the prototype for the way Brainiac 5 is portrayed for decades to come, especially the 3boot and what Matthew E calls the retroboot (the Johnsboot). Unfortunately, to my mind the series succumbed to the virus that has afflicted every team book since the 1980s -- the team must fall apart, preferably destroyed from within by one of its own, and then be rebuilt in some radically different manner. Giffen has been a serial abuser of this trope since the late 1980s and it's why I don't ever want him near the Legion again except as a reader (and a paying one, at that). But like I said, those first issues of the dot Legion were very influential for much that has come after.
Heh, thanks.
And thanks for the info! I'll keep it in mind when I have spare comic books cash laying around. I'm hoping some of the issues will show up at my local used bookstore, comics are half cover price there.
Maybe...just maybe...if R.E.B.E.L.S. picks up enough steam, DC will collect some of the older stuff in trades? Am I being too optimistic here?
-------------------- "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." — Edward D. Wood, Jr.
From: Texas, USA | Registered: Feb 2009
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posted
Totally impressed by the first issue. I think I've reread it 3 times now. The artwork is absolutely outstanding, great dialogue, intriguing story and I didn't even mind the inclusion of Supergirl. I never really read the original series although I'm somewhat familiar with it and some of the characters. If it keeps up like the first ish. I may not miss the Legion so much, especially considering how disappointing almost everything Legion has been for the last couple of years.
This along with my recent turn-on to the current run of Green Lantern Corps has given me a couple of "super hero" comics to actually look forward to
-------------------- Is that a moon?
From: Portland, OR | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Nightcrawler: Of course mysterious antennae guy could also be another Green Lantern...the Durlan male from LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES ANNUAL Vol. 1 #1 (1982) -
posted
The Cham-like silhouette could also be Mento of the Doom Patrol. Maybe that makes some sense if Guardian wanted to recruit someone with some telepathic abilities to deal with a mysterious telepath.
-------------------- Chaim Mattis Keller ckeller@nyc.rr.com Legion-Reference-File Lad
From: New York, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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SUPERMAN #688 Written by James Robinson Art by Renato Guedes & José Wilson Magalhães Cover by Andrew Robinson And who is the spy within the Science Police ranks?
Did they just say SPY? It's gotta be Cham.
Side note: James Robinson isn't really considered a Legion writer by the fandom but at some point he's got to get honorary status or something like that based on all the individual Legionaires he's written(assumuing he's going to write Tellus and Cham).
If he adds Cham and Tellus to his list he'll have worked on Starboy, Mon-El, Tellus, Cham and Superman....
Registered: Mar 2006
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quote: I will say something that has always struck me as funny about some Time Travel stories...when the character is in the past he's not there in the future, as if being in the past is just another geographical location in the future. While it's certainly true that being in the past could be a reason for a characters absence depending on when they return...they could also return to the future the instant after they left, with virtually no time passing and without being absent at all...
It is kind of funny when they make them absent.
You know I was thinking about this and came up with a reason for this. This reason only really works if you need a STORY reason for a character not to be able to instantaneously reappear right after they left (like in a lot of old Legion stories they needed Superboy out of way to tell the story, so he HAD to go back in time for some reason or another).
Anyways, what I was thinking, is that even though you are in the future, your body would still physically age. Now if your trip to the future was just going to be a short jaunt (an hour or two) and you would only ever do it once, than this doesn't apply. However, if you are a frequent visitor like Superboy or Supergirl, than you have to worry that they spend sooo much time in the future that you could actually throw off their normal development.
For example, if Clark went with the Legion, came back after a month in the future the exact second he left he would physically be a month older. Now if he were to visit the future regularly (which he did) than after awhile this could catch up with him. Within the space of a 20th century month he could have physically aged 2 years depending on how many trips to the future he made and how long he spent each trip. This would certainly be bad for the secret identity and could possibly have other unforeseen mental/physical side affects. Thus, when the legion allowed Superboy and Supergirl to join they decided that they would NOT send them back the very instant they left because of the ramifications to their natural growth, but rather would make sure the same amount of time would pass in the past as well as the future.
Like I said, it's not a brilliant reason, but if the writer, for the sake of the story, needs a character to go back to the past for a certain event they could use this excuse to explain why the character doesn't just go back to the instant they left.
On a side note, it has always bugged me when characters are supposed to be in another dimension or in the future for a long time and the growth is never acknowledged. I felt this way after Kon rejoined the Teen Titans in the Teen Titans/Legion crossover. The time he spent in the 31st century in terms of time passed and what he learned (and hair growth, I never liked the cut McKone gave him) were just ignored.
Anyways, that's how I explain it away to myself when I read old Legion stories.
-------------------- Long Live the Legion!
Registered: Mar 2007
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posted
Yeah I always looked at it as them doing it that way so they would age at the same rate...
However, in at least one Pre-Crisis Superman story the laws governing Time Travel were shown not to work quite that way...
In one story it was established that no matter how long they spent in a different time, when they returned to their own time they were the same age as they had been when they left. In the story I remember Superman took two geriatric chrononauts who were basically lost in time, back to the point from which they left and they were young again.
Or wait...no, one of them was geriatric and one of them was young, even though they had originally left at the same timne and were the same age, and when he returned them to their time they were both the same age again, and the old one had de-aged.
In the case of Superboy I always figured they would always go back exactly 1012 years(or whatever) to the day...to avoid Time paradoxes and just general confusion. The reason it wasn't exactly 1000 years to the day is because the Legion contemporary adventures were always shown to be a thousand years in Superman's future, not Superboy's....and the exact date of Superboy's adventures is never really given, but I figure 12 years or so is about right.
For instance, if it was June 12th 2968, to see Superman they'd go back to June 12th 1968, to see Superboy they'd go back to June 12th 1956. This is just en example...
Same rules applied to Superman and Superboy. If it was April 19th 1986, Superman would fly to April 19th 2986...Superboy would fly from 1974 to 2986.
It does make sense that way, and that was the general rule they followed...but still it was kind of funny in certain situations
Like for instance when Supergirl died...she wasn't any more dead to the Legion after that than she had always been. Paul did put an interesting spin on it by having her memorial issue be the thousandth year anniverisary of her death....but if not for the effects of the Crisis erasing her nothing would have really changed...
Again in the case of Supergirl, instead of Brainy spending the issue thinking about her now being dead...he could have just hopped hopped into the time bubble and gone and seen her like he had done countless times before. I mean nothing had really changed from the frame of reference standpoint, I guess that's why they said the rules of Time Travel had changed.
If they really want to make it interesing...they should have teams up from different eras...like for instance, Superboy showing up in the contemporary continuity the day after the Legion first met him, just to see what happened...
Or the Adventure era Legion showing up in next month's issue of Superman.
Alan Moore did kind of do that in Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow IIRC...it wasn't the contemporary Legion that showed up in that story to give Superman the hint he needed to win that battle...it was the Adventure Era Legion in all their Swanian glory.
Of course the Iron Curtain of Time was always some pseudo reason they couldn't do much of that, as it was almost always used as the excuse in Legion stories, even though technically all it was ever stated that it did was keep the Legion from traveling more than 30days into the future.
And that brings up a true paradox...since the Iron Curtain of time existed in the Time Stream and not any true time, and it moved...31 days after the Legion first tried to break it, it was no longer there where it had been 31 days before when they originally tried to break it..so that story that took place 31 days before couldn't have happened exactly the same way.
And once they finally did break it, since it existed outside of time...doesn't that mean that at that point it never existed? So it was no longer there in any of the stories that involved it. I know they had it move to also counteract this paradox...but it still never really worked completely, especially since it never seemed to have any impact on Superman's Time Traveling except when he was with the Legion, and not always then...The most glaring example also beng one of the most classic Legion stories the adult Legion story...the Iron Curtain of Time should have prevented Superman from going more than a thousand years into the future to see the Adult Legion.
I love this stuff by the way...to me the Time Travel is what always set the Legion apart from other teams, as they also had a job as Time Police long before the Linear Men did.
I say just allow unlimited Time Travel, at least for the Legion, it's another thing that'll make them unique...and it's much more fun that way.
[ February 17, 2009, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: Superboy ]
Registered: Mar 2006
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