Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion vs Company Wide Crossovers

Hey all.

The Legion has been involved in many company-wide cross overs over the years, from Crisis on Infinite Earths and Legends, all the way to Final Crisis and Blackest Night.

Which stories do you belive benefited the Legion-verse the most, and which the least? Are there any that you feel damaged Legion Lore, or any that helped it grow in a good way?

Should the Legion be exempt from company-wide stories, or do you think they should always be in the thick of it?

EDE's official position: Keep the Legion the hell away from the rest of the DCU.

[raises hand]

Seconded.

Hell, I'm still mad about Original Recipe Crisis. Enough already.

I am usually squarely in the keep the Legion out of it camp but if there is a logical reason why they are involved like with Legends and Millennium then I do not see the harm.

But shoehorning them in just for the sake of it is never a good thing.

For me, the further away from the 21st Century the better. Every time DC pulls it, the book is hurt.

I don't want them mixed up in 21st century stuff either.

In the crossover events, they usually get so diluted among all the other characters. I didn't mind the last one with the Titans, though, because the Titans came to the future and were on the Legion's turf.

I'd like to see them (occasionally) in other time periods, though. And if there's a crossover event, please let it be with one of the other two Legions.

Well, there's always the Year One annuals. LSH and Legionnaires had just been rebooted and were in year one anyway, so nothing whatsoever needed to be done for the "crossover".

The best ones usually were the Legion doing something that would have been done anyway with the crossover tacked on only for marketing. The Legends crossover (Cosmic Boy miniseries) had a lot more to do with the Time Trapper than with Darkseid.

The less a crossover affects the Legion, the happier I am.

For that matter, the less a Green Lantern or Flash-specific event affects Gotham, Themiscrya, Atlantis and Metropolis, the happier I am. I strongly feel that a shared universe is a bane to good storytelling, and that some properties flow best in their own little micro-cosms (such as Gotham and her signature heroes' street-level activities).

Same for Marvel. If the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men all lived in different universes, that would be just swell, so that the Fantastic Four-loving denizens of New York wouldn't be the same hate-and-fear-filled rioting protestors of the X-Men books, or the super-hero mistrusting inhabitants of Spider-Man's version of New York.

I only want continuity *within* a series. If REBELS determines that RJ Brande is 1000 years old, Phantom Girl is a Carggite triplet and Validus comes from a race of Validuses, I could care less, and don't necessarily want it polluting my Legion of Super-Heroes continuity.

^^^I like continuity, but I think continuity should be made to fit the story, not the other way around. I dunno if that makes sense, but as an example I guess..

*If Validus in REBELS is from a race of Validuses (Validii?), but in the Legion's timeline he's Garth and Imra's mutated son, maybe it means by the time the Legion's time comes around, that race has all but died out and Darkseid just implanted Garridan Ranzz's essence in the last surviving member of that race. Which could also explain how he's still around now that Garth and Imra have Garridan back. That way, both stories are valid, they both use continuity, but continuity doesn't dictate what either title can do.

I think there are definite benefits to a company-wide continuity; the reason the Legion facing Darkseid in the GDS was so epic was because we already knew how hardcore he was from previous appearances. Brainy's relationship with Supergirl is so much more bittersweet when we KNOW that she is going to die young. I thought the one-shot story about Professor Ivo going after the JLA's descendants was cute because it relied on the assumption of a relationship with the rest of the DC Universe. All of this stuff wouldn't be possible without acknowledgement of intra-title continuity.

I do agree that the Legion being 1000 years in the DCU's future shouldn't restrict them from doing anything they like, but I like the odd occasion when continuity can work for them too.

With the exception of all those Crisis stories, which I suppose the Legion was affected by in one way or another, I would have to say the less the Legion's characters and timeline are used the better.
There have been enough grand scale screw-ups as a result of trying to drag the 31st century into an on-going crossover series continuity over the years, Lord knows.

it is interesting that Karate Kid's time in the past didnt screw up legion history by some writer doing some dumb thing. I thought it would be interesting if they had Iris Jacobs be one of Val's ancestors.


By the way...WHERE IS INFERNO from Legion 247???!!!!!!!!

I've really, really, tried to think of a single crossover that helped the Legion in any way and came up with .... nothing. The best I can do is that the original crossover with the JLA and the JSA didn't actually hurt them. It didn't have really odd characterizations or strange tidibits thrown out there like the latest crossover did, and it didn't actually hurt them or mess with their history like Millennium or CoIE (for example) did. That's the best I can come up with.

You can run into situations where the 21st century says that something hass changed forever. The Legion comic then has to act as though it really has changed forever. Then the other series brings back the element that's changed "forever" and all of a sudden the Legion looks foolish.

keep it as disconnected as possible - as long as there is the notion of a single, linear timeline in play. If Crisis wasn't enough proof, the Byrne Superman revamp is case-in-point: Superboy and Kara-Supergirl were back within a quarter-century; there was no need to write them out at all. Ignoring them to prevent confusion would have been enough.

The more ties there are, the more pointless carpets can be pulled out from under us.

If, for instance, the current LSH GL situation continues/grows, and the modern-day GLC implodes "forever" in 2015 (for example), there will likely be an expectation for LSH 'continuity' to follow suit and have 31st C GLs all be fakes/manhunters/whatever... even though the modern-day Corps could easily be back within a few years. Luckily, Celeste's GL connections in 5YL were vague enough that this was avoided last time the Corps was disbanded; had there been tight ties, it would have caused LSH 'continuity' to adapt.

The only way I'd like to see more Legion in 21C x-overs (and even then, only if there is a reason, only if well written, and only if it does not spill over into 15 other series) would be to nix the idea of a singular timeline.

I know the Continuity Cops will crucify me, but I'd actually rather have 21st C people (other than Superman) permanently confused as to which Legion is the future; I'd love for different variant Legions to turn up almost randomly when one is needed in a 21st C story; whether the Silver Age Adult Legion (like in Superman/Batman a few years back), an alternate Legion based on Adv 247 designs, 5YL, Reboot, 3boot... or some other ones. I like the idea that at any given moment, any number of futures could be the future of the DCU. One single timeline is pointless, and it is always changing (and should be).

That works for me.

No cross-overs, ever.
None of them have ever done the Legion any good.
Most seem intent on screwing over some part of the Legion's history.

I'd prefer them having as little to do with the 21st century DCU as possible.
That includes Superboy and all the other Superpeople DC tries to shoehorn into the book to "boost" sales.

My own view is that the Legion should feel free to help themselves to concepts and ideas from other DC properties, but there's absolutely no need to worry about whether the continuity as used in the Legion fits with the continuity as used in other books. So if they want to use GL or Thanagar or whatever, it really doesn't matter what happens to them in the "present" DCU.

Honestly, I could do without this whole "You guys can't have Lana Lang as Insect Queen because that contradicts her current portrayal in the Superman comics and so you guys have to figure out how to modify the Legion to accomodate it" bs.

I don't care whether Lana in the Legion is consistent with the current Superman stories. It's consistent with the past Legion stories (and at least one really important one that features Lana prominenty), and that's a lot more important to me.*

This kind of trying to force the square peg of the pre-Crisis Legion into the round hole of the current DCU that we've got now is pretty much a recipe for disaster and more and more fan frustration (as we're already seeing), as far as I'm concerned.


*At least if we're reading a Legion that claims to incorporate the pre-Crisis Legion history. I'm also happy with other continuities that don't necessarily base themselves on this era, such as Superboy's Legion.

well said, EDE.

You forget that the Legion of Super-Heroes first appeared in a Superboy story. For years they starred in a title called Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. They are inspired and directly tied to the Superman line of comic books.

Legion fans want the books to have high sales. How can that happen without luring in fans of other comics?

I suspect that he has not forgotten that.

'Luring' in fans of other things is a stunt. It's used in Television as what they call 'stunt-casting,' to bring in some big name star from another place to attract fans of that celebrity to watch their show. But it never adds to longer term additions to viewership. It's a stopgap, temporarily fluffing up numbers, but, when such 'stunt-casting' begins to turn off the actual fans of the show itself, so that they tune out, it becomes a net loss for the programs overall viability.

The same formula applies to comic books. If 10,000 fans read the Legion of Super-Heroes because they like the Legion of Super-Heroes, and 5,000 people show up one month because they are crossover fans of Sodam Yot, they are going to be disappointed and leave when they find out that Sodam Yot will *not* be appearing in issue 2, or 3, or 4.

Meanwhile, the bread-and-butter fanbase of the Legion of Super-Heroes themselves are wondering why 35% of the page-count is devoted to the continuance of a storyline that started *in the 21st century* and is 1000 years worth of irrelevant to the story of the Legion of Super-Heroes, whose name is on the cover of the book they paid their money to buy, expecting 100% of the content to be about the characters they know and love, and not crossover content.

If 35% of your next Batman book was devoted to fitting Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew into Gotham continuity, would you feel terribly encouraged, as a fan of Batman, to continue forking over money for this book?

The Legion got it's start from Superboy. But, as of Crisis on Infinite Earths, where the changes to Superman's continuity rippled down to destroy one of of DCs two top-selling titles, apparently *irrevocably,* since it's been 25 years, and they *still* haven't finished digging their way out of that hole, even after reintroducing Krypto and Supergirl and Superboy and the Multiverse.

Dick Grayson got his start in the pages of Batman, working quite literally in his shadow, and went on to become more successful as a Teen Titan and as Nightwing than ever. He wasn't successful because Batman showed up in every issue. He was successful on his own terms. The Legion could be successful on it's own terms as well, without Superboy (girl, dog, or other 21st century legacy concepts, like the Green Lanterns) having to show up in every issue.

The fear of change and growth in the comics industry is kind of killing it. Just because something starts somewhere (the Legion in the pages of Superboy, Dick Grayson in the pages of Batman, Professor X in a wheelchair, Peter Parker as a bachelor), does not mean that the character is trapped in that single moment for all of eternity and can *never* move past that introductory point.

Dick Grayson, IMO, became a better character when he put away the red, yellow and green circus acrobat costume and stepped up as Nightwing, forging his own identity that honored elements of his past.

The Legion, also IMO, needs to put away their red blanky with 'S' symbol on it, pull their thumbs out of their mouths and step up as well. Their introductory phase as 'Superboy's pals from the future' was 50 freaking years ago. Isn't it time for the training wheels to come off?

For what it's worth, Superboy was pretty much isolated from the rest of the DCU for most of his history as well, with his title occurring about fifteen years before the rest of the DCU. Not exactly someone who was crossing over with other titles on a regular basis.

Their primary contact with the mainstream DCU was through Supergirl, and, to a lesser extent, Jimmy Olsen (though I can only think of one Legion story in which Jimmy played a major role; most of the connection was established by the Legion showing up in Jimmy's book).

I think the only crossover that actively HARMED Legion was Zero Hour, and that's just because it was the begining of the endless reboot cycle. Crisis on Infinite Earths itself didn't hurt the Legion, they Bryne reboot did.
I enjoy Legion/21st Century events once and awhile, as long as they're few and far between. Both to keep them from doing any damage to the Legion and to keep them something special.

This is so Bobby Ewing's death and return in the shower...Remember the night time soap Knots Landing...well it was a spin off of Dallas...and since the brother of Bobby was Gary who was on Knots well he had come to Dallas to pay his respects and that theme of Bobby's death contiuned on Knots Landing..so much so that Gary named one of his kids Bobby...sooooooooooo a season later..Bobby's in the shower...KNots from then on had nothing to do with Dallas LOL cause they messed them up...cause a dream season for dallas would mean that their whole season at the same time would have had to also been a dream...and they didn't do Dream it away. LOL

http://www.ultimatedallas.com/newdream/faq.htm

Have any crossovers been "good" for the LSH? It depends on what "good" means. Crossovers in the 1970s (my formative Legion years) included the Legion meeting the JLA and the JSA, Karate Kid's solo series, and the Legion teaming up with Batman in Brave & Bold. None of these stories had a lasting impact (good or bad) on the Legion, and most could be overlooked by the most ardent fans without hindering our understanding or appreciation of the Legion. However, such stories were fun for their own sake. They enabled us to see the Legion in a different context.

Alas, if one is looking for "good" to come out of such crossovers in terms of enhanced sales for the Legion, one is looking in the wrong dimension. Set did an outstanding job of articulating the problems with that theory. Unfortunately, crossovers these days seem to be done for solely that purpose--to enhance sales--which destroys the fun, in my opinion.

(That isn't to say that DC wasn't looking at the bottom line when they teamed the Legion up with the JLA and the JSA. However, the rarity of such an event made it special.)

Crossovers work best, in my opinion, when they enable us to see the Legionnaires in a somewhat different context or setting. Most crossovers should have little impact on the regular Legion series itself--though if such an impact does happen, it should be rare enough that we know *THIS IS A BIG EVENT*.

As for the Legion's connections to Superboy/man/girl, I see that as a separate issue from crossovers. The Superboy/Supergirl connection is an intricate part of the Legion's mythos, history, and appeal.

Can the Legion survive without the Super-cousins? Of course. One can even make an argument that they should survive, as some above have done, in the way that most people outgrow their high school friends. But the Legion should not be totally divorced from Superboy and Supergirl as part of their past. If the Legion never encounters the super-cousins again, I would be content so long as it is clearly acknowledged that those stories *did* happen and that they are a part of Legion canon.