Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Tom Defalco writing Legion Lost

Tom talking about LL. Starting to read it now...

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/tom-defalco-legion-lost-111205.html

Yeah, anything I've read by DeFalco in the last 10 years has been pretty good. It could be a case of him becoming a better writer as he got older, as sometimes happens.

I'm willing to give him a chance. It's unfair to judge his Legion work sight unseen. Judd Winnick has been proving me wrong for three months now and I'm thrilled to watch a writer grow and improve.

I agree completely, the 30th century universe is large enough to explore without using the same old tired plot device of being "stuck in the past" These stories ALWAYS come back to bite continuity in the ass.

Read the interview.

Pros - He likes Gates (implying Gates is back).

Cons - He doesn't know the characters well and has sitcom comparisons for the direction of the book.

Neither of those cons are necessarily deal-breakers (fresh takes can be interesting and humour can work if used properly), but they do set off warning bells that things could go off the rails pretty easily.

Given the Legion's history, especially the multiple reboots of the last years, I really don't think that anyone really knows these characters anymore.
Look at Tasmia and Paul should know her pretty well, but her she is, totally confused and trying to be more like the reboot and 3boot Tasmias.
So, we don't really recognize her at all.

And I love his idea of humor and character based heroism and positive stuff.
All of the dark hopelessness of comics in recent years has pretty much made me nausious.

I DO wonder why Fabian left.
I don't understand how other things suddenly needed his time more than LOST.

But, then, I couldn't understand how TPTB could just pull Phil away from the Legion Academy work he and Paul were doing.

Not sure how I feel about DeFalco. I haven't read anything by him for years. I'll treat him as a wait and see.

My bigger worry is the talk about crossovers. I hate 'em. That could drive me from the book real fast!

Since the NuDC started the only books I'm getting anymore are LSH and LL. I hope un-needed crossovers don't drive me completely away.

Worse yet, they end up killing the entire series. (I'm thinking of the reboot in particular, which never recovered from a year's worth of having half the team stuck in the past.)

I just don't get why so many writers feel the need to send some Legionaries back in time...almost exclusively to the 20-21st century. Its almost to the point of becoming as trite as the "create a misunderstanding between two good guys and have them fight, then team -up" plot. A professional writer can't find something interesting in the 31st century? You can make up an entire species create a new world???/ WTH?

Exploring some of the Legion's past but the future to us would be interesting. What was it like in Booster Gold's time, what caused the later world wars etc. But too much and it becomes a Rip Hunter book.

I'd actually find that preferable. I'd much rather see the stay in the 21st century be relatively short, then have the Lost team try to get home and have the bubble fail, dropping them at random points in DCU history. It would at least be a way to fill in some gaps in the "new DCnU" backstory. Of course, I'd rather them all back in the 31st Century anyway, but if you had to have a "lost" scenario, I could be down with "lost in time".

This is a bad idea, for the same reason that having Green Lanterns or the Martian Manhunter show up in the 31st Century is often a bad idea--it sounds good but the trouble is that all the continuity you're using is controlled by other writers, Every time someone else decides to retcon things (or just to say that something is destroyed "forever" in a time period before the Legion meets them again) the Legion's own history gets rewritten. Sometimes multiple times as the other writers keep shifting between destroyed "forever" and back.

the Hermit:

I actually thought that was pretty good. I didn't think the reboot lost steam until the Dark Circle story, which was meant to be some sort of grand epic but ended up as "meh." After that point, they did a bunch of un-memorable one-offs and bad pre-boot homages (did we really need a reboot version of the Bizarro Legion story?).

Ken Arromdee:

That's a fair point, but still, why always the present time? why not the Civil War era? Or Medieval China? Or the Roman Empire? And, for that matter, why always Earth? There were a few occasions before the reboot where time travel dumped the Legion in further-past time periods, (and once, it was the past of Khundia) but none since then.

That's totally right. Back then, it tore the team in two and made both books worse than they already were. And now? Legion Lost is a strange book from the beginning. I seriously doubt that anybody not close to the Legion would read this book dealing with a hypertaxis threat - the book just does not ring the right bells.

I do not miss Wildfire and the others in the 30th century, I feel that the main hbook is really good right now. But I also feel that Dawnstar, Wildfire and tyroc, as much as I love them, cannot carry a book on their own. And Timber Wolf becoming the second Wolverine certainly does not help.

So about the new writer? I think he can't make things much worse. This ill-conceived concept is doomed anyway, so let someone else try to do his best. Sorry, but Niciezas first three issues do not make me feel that his going away is a great loss

I don't see this going past issue 12 At lease when they get back to the 31st century Tyroc will have hair again and a better uniform. I hope Paul is working on a story to bring them home

If the DC reboot was tied into the Legion Lost concept, with the alien DNA plague having some tie in to the appearance of new superhumans (such as the relatively recent proliferation of super-teens, mentioned in Teen Titans), that could have been a huge help in tying the Legion to the DCU, without necessarily having the Legion made vulnerable to changes, in the way that it was after the 'no Superboy' mandate.

To my mind, the whole *point* of a massive DCU wide reboot like this would be to tie things together, clean things up and streamline the ship.

Instead of a great opportunity to tie things together, it seems like a ratings stunt to boost short-term sales, and that works great, for a quarter or two, and then a new 'gimmick' is required next season, when the shine has gone off.

I'm not sure I want yearly reboots to replace rare variant foil covers or yearly crossover 'events' as the sales gimmick-of-the-decade...

Not to worry. By the end of the decade most comics will be digital-only anyway.

Well, at least he identifies with Gates, so maybe we'll get some Gates-time.

Maybe it will take a little longer, though. Old guys like me just can't adapt to reading comic books on a screen. Even though some of the Digital comics out there like Freak Angels are pretty good, I just can't get into reading them on a screen - it's just not the same. And I definitely want no comic book collection that is in constant danger of being erased by some hard disc failure or some computer virus some 15year old nerd programmed to bugger the world

I don't really believe all comics will be digital--it makes no sense business wise. But the print selection may grow smaller.

Regardless, I dont do digital. Once a comic goes digital only, I'm out.

My biggest problem with digital is that they are the same price up front as print...all along the years since I have been in the hobby, we have been told that paper costs have been the driving factor for the price increases.

If they not in a print format...they should automatically be cheaper (no ink being used, no paper being used.) I feel the same about regular books as well. I understand a little for storage needs, but it can be nowhere near what printing costs are.

I won't pay for digital comics... ever.

me either. <high five>!

Totes agree, LLashie... My only experience with digital thus far is Warren Ellis' Freakangels, which is free to read online... I actually sampled it online and ended up paying for the six trade volumes. I refuse to PAY for something I don't physically *own*.

Amen, buddy! Preach it, Lash!

Besides, There's a lot of good FREE stuff already digital... *coughStarsearcherscough*

/end plug