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SAN DIEGO, DAY FOUR: CHAYKIN, WILLINGHAM, SIMONE ON JLA
by Beau Yarbrough, Staff Writer
Posted: July 21, 2003

In other superteam news, look for the Legion of Super-Heroes to be more closely tied into the rest of the DC Universe in 2004, although Carlin wouldn't give out details in the absence of that book's creative team.

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Good thing or bad thing...?

Bad thing. DC has always tried to establish closer ties between the Legion and the modern DCU with mixed results. Arguably the worst example was the "Team 20" arc, in which half the team was stranded in the 20th century for more than a year.

Of course, it's important to remember that the Legion started as a spin-off from Superboy, so the Legion should never be totally divorced from the rest of the DCU. But with Ra's al Ghul and ersatz versions of the JLA and Darkseid having appeared recently, I think I've had my fill of DCU ties in the Legion for awhile.

Provided we don't enter Crossover Hell, I think anything that improves the wider profile of the Legion cannot be a bad thing.

Unless creative controls were given to Liefeld or someone...

I would think this would mean the addition of Kon El to the team that's been talked about. I sure wish DnA would have shown up like was scheduled. I wonder what happened that they didn't?

i think if the stories are done well it's okay !!

probably the reason the TITLE doesn't do as well, is because it is the ONLY title on it's own ....

back in the 80's we still had SUPERBOY and SUPERGIRL and though they didn't appear all the time, we still had that link !!

Matthew.

Bad thing. I've always felt there should be limited Legion connections to the rest of DCU. Rarely are these crossovers worth the price of admission, and they never do anything for Legion. Just marketing gimmicks, rarely done well. Wasted issues IMO.

Remember Team 20? Bet you wish you didn't.

Kon-el? Geez, and we just got rid of the snake. Now we get this 'tweener? What for, a boyfriend for Lori?

I'm reserving judgment on this one. The "more closely tied" no doubt refers in part to Kon-El joining the Legion, but it may refer as well to Kal-El. Having read Teen Titans #1 the possibility occurred to me that Kon will be inspired to join the Legion by Superman himself. (Note: Kal and Kon are pretty close these days, with Kon living with the Kents under the name Connor Kent, though he's having a hard time adjusting). Perhaps Superman will reveal to Kon the story of a visit made to Smallville decades earlier by three young superheroes from the future (see panels at Arune's site). New-continuity Kal was not ready/willing/able to join them at the time, but will encourage the troubled Kon to find his destiny in the 31st century, with the promise of an occasional visit to check up on his protégé.

If done with intelligence and a nod of reverence to the pre-crisis past, I might be able to live with a scenario like that. Kon is still something of a jerk, but he seems to be on the verge of a major attitude adjustment.

that was very well put !! i agree with everything you said !!

Matthew.

This is kinda one of those times when opinions do not seem to matter. The poll said put Clone-El in Titans, not Legion. More than generally, every Legion board indicates a preference for a disconnected present and future.

This is a marketing driven decision. Doesn't sound like a good start. DnA are good and may pull it off, but what about the next writers?

Would the team be any different than a team from a technically advanced planet in the present? What becomes of those things that make Legion unique?

In the past, the Legion stories were very Earth-centric, they themselves were based on Earth, we had Earth presidents, etc. ...with Legion World, the idea of a 31st century Earth has receded. They could be anywhere.

It was this Earth of the future connection which distinguished them, in my mind, from a 20th century advanced race or mutant team book.

I'm not keen on an active connection between the centuries. We could still have references to historical events and superheroes of the past, without actually itnermingling the two times. We may need a Campaign to Keep the Future in the Future.

I don't see that happening. DC doesn't want to quit using Superboy as a character but cancelled him comic and his team comic. Maybe Paul Levitz has something to do with this. Could be he sees it as a way of bringing more attention to the Legion and convinced the creators of both Teen Titans and The Legion it would be best for all. Just not necessarily best for us, the fans.

i suppose what we have to remember is this is a BUSINESS !!! and whatever choices are made are usually are the ones that will generate the money .....

if comics are still around in another 20 years or so, they'll all have been rebooted AGAIN to suit the audience of that day !!!

JAMES BOND has been featured in movies for 40 years now, and to compare "Dr No" to "Die Another Day" would be silly !!!

there's a 40 year gap between them, but the core essence of the characters are still there, it's just had to change with the current market !!!

THE LEGION and the rest of the comic industry cannot be any different ....

Matthew.

My only problem with it was that their DCU ties were what destroyed the Legion in the pre-boot. Their strongest tie was Superboy, and when TPTB agreed to retcon Superboy out of existence, all of the Legion retcons began to try to fill in the gaps in Legion history that this left. With every retcon the fragile continuity broke down more and more, until things were so bad that a reboot was the only way out.

But that's what DC does. It retcons something, and doesn't seem to care what that does to the rest of their line. And then, when someone fixes something (or puts a patch on it) to tie up a loose end that a retcon leaves, they can't leave well enough alone. They patch and repatch the hole until its become such a mess that no one knows what the heck is going on.

That's what happened to Donna Troy. They retconned Wonder Woman, and then Marv and George reworked her origin to make that work. Then John Byrne came along and added his fix, which worked against what M & G did. Then Jay Faerber did his spin on it. By the time everyone was done, no one could figure out who the hell she was.

Say what you want about Marvel, but I rarely (if ever) see them doing this.

i don't think they'll ever get it right !!!

the damage has been done, and as you put it .... anything that comes after will always be a PATCH UP job !!!

BATMAN is about the only major DC character not to have had a major origin/history change !!!

why is that ....

Matthew.

No, they do it worse. They just let the histories of their characters get more convuluted as time passes. Take the most recent tweak to the origin of Nightcrawler. Now he is only 19 years old and his father is a demon. So that makes him around 14 when he joined the X-Men. DC sure isn't right about what they do but at least they do try to stay consistent. The only consistency I've found in Marvel lately is to stick with the Ultimate line where there is no old history to worry about.

Really? Wow... that really is lame. I wonder, does that make Amanda Sefton a child molestor, then? She was a stewardess when she and Kurt started dating, and unless the airlines hire pre-teens, then she was at least 18, and dating a 14 year old.

Well, I guess I'll have to rethink my opinion of Marvel and retcons

Eww! I hadn't even thought of that. My immediate thought was this makes Kitty older than Kurt and makes Logan an accessory to underage drinking.

That's one of the problems I have with Marvel. They don't retcon very well. They have more conflicted origins than DC but at least DC rebooted their universe to try and make them fit.

Nightcrawler is 19???

Oh COME ON. That means he was seeing Amanda Sefton when he was, what? 15? Leading Excalibur at age 16-17? And he's like younger than Kitty Pryde. JUBILEE's age.

Whatever. Marvel is a joke.

I second the sentiments of the last two posts! HEARTILY.

Okay. Time to fess up. I paid Marvel to print that. I'm really 29.

Oh, for the days when I was younger than Kitty Pryde...

(Y'know how she stays so young? I'm her Dorian Gray-ish picture.)

The Legionnaires would still be older than me if it weren't for that damned reboot!

Umm... is this whole Nightcrawler thing more Internet gossip or can it actually be backed up with quotes from an X-Men comic? It sounds to me like something which has been heard and repeated a few times without verification. In what issue was it stated? Are we sure it's not Ultimate Nightcrawler which we're talking about here?

The latest Uncanny X-Men (#428) is a flashback story. Panel one clearly says "Germany, 20 years ago." TWENTY years ago. It's the story of Raven Wagner (Mystique) and the affair she has with some demon or demonic looking mutant which produces Nightcrawler. If I had the issue in front of me I'd scan everyone a pic. So, no, it isn't a rumor and it isn't Ultimate X-Men. It is the Uncanny X-Men being written by the uncannily bad Chuck Austen.

[Edit: Sorry if that sounded terse, it wasn't meant to be. But even though I don't regularly read the regular Marvel Universe titles anymore it still ticks me off to do this to a very well established character without doing it in a re-boot or Elseworlds (What If?) kinda of situation. Just plain bad writing and not caring for what has come before.]

Well, that's just awful. Funny how "writers" think that just because an editor gives them permission to do something, that makes it right. Don't they know that editors come and go?

To me, Chuck Austen will always be the guy who was a big letdown when he took over Miracleman years ago. Gary Leach to Alan Davis to the then Chuck Beckum. Apparently he wrote an issue of Ultimate X-Men because he was chummy with the editor, and the editor of Uncanny saw it, liked it, and gave him the job. The guy had zero writing experience before that. Zero.

Gee, I guess all it takes to write is to stick words into people's mouths. You don't need to use your brain or nuthin'.