Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Indications that Legion History may be too complex for the new reader

“You know that your franchise has some continuity concerns when a "Glorith-verse" exists as an official naming convention.” – Fabian Nicieza

There is a Floyd Belkin Disambiguation Page .

Oy Vey!

My reaction to this is that DC has made Legion history unnecessarily convoluted by constantly rebooting the series, setting the clock back, and doing multiple relaunches.

The internal complexity of the Legion's universe -- at least it's preboot history -- was one of the things that attracted me to the Legion in the first place. I can't believe that kids today are too dumb to keep straight 20-plus characters, powers, and homeworlds, numerous villains, and a long but consistent fictional history. Nor can I accept that these are things that drive fans away.

QFT - tho i think they should be able to understand the reboots too. good writing would allow people to pick up on whats happening.

This is a big problem.

Those who reboot tend to use the reasoning "it's a reboot, so you don't need to know anything from before the reboot". This reasoning almost never works. If nothing else, you need to know *that* there was a reboot, and you need to know that certain stories must be ignored even if they're still available on the shelf in trade paperbacks and mentioned in all the reference sources you can find.

Hey, if kids can keep track of 600+ Pokemon, their abilities, moves and stats, and everything else that comes with it...

And, when DC publishes stories like Legion of 3 Worlds, Legion Lost (Dna), and two Legion series set in the current continuity all at the same time... Confusion is what you're bound to get.

i got on board the legion with secrets of the legion of super-heroes (was the first legion book i ever saw) and outside of superboy and supergirl i knew no one else...and i enjoyed it and it made me hungry to know who these people were. the legion history isnt too complex...its people probably want something spoonfed for them. if they want that there are plenty of websites for them (cosmicteams). if they still cant "get it" then they're dumb as rocks and should keep to Archie comics.

Well, maybe it's not so much Legion history being too complex. Maybe the problem is, new readers simply aren't intrigued enough to want to find out more. They have to have the desire to do so.

You physically don't have to keep track of your Pokemon. Every Pokemon game has a Pokedex, which tells you the information you need to know. The games are more or less self-contained. For example, when the Kanto region is unlocked in Heartgold it is a nostalgia trip for me but someone who didn't grow up with it would not be intimidated. I think new readers should be provided with essential information.

It's possible for someone who has no guide and never previously played a Pokemon game to finish one, but that will mainly be by just grinding all the Pokemon up a lot of levels and saying "hey, that Pokemon hasn't died much, I think I'll keep it". The games are also full of things that someone who plays this way will have no clue why they would want them. (You aren't going to know that a particular item evolves an arbitrary Pokemon only when traded, for instance.)

Basically, you'll miss most of the depth in the Pokemon games if you play them without outside knowledge. At least in the days of the Internet there are good free online guides, but of course there are guides to the Legion as well.

Secrets of the Legion
-- was published when not only was there less history, but there were few big retcons, no reboots or five year gaps, and certainly no trade paperbacks or references featuring them.
-- was published before the era of constant universe-wide crossovers, which make history much harder to understand
-- was published when comics typically had standalone stories, not 5 or 6 subplots running at a time
-- is an ideal intro anyway. You will know who these people are if that was your first Legion comic. I don't see anyone picking up Legion Lost #1 and knowing who those people are beyond the bare minimum.

One of the best ideas of the 5YG series was the box on the letters page that recapped previous events relevant to that issue's story. The idea was so good, in fact, that most serialized TV dramas now do something similar at the beginning of each show ("previously on Lost...")

My point as well. The number of characters in the Legion, and the number of continuities, may be overwhelming, but that alone shouldn't stop anyone from researching online... IF they really want to learn more.

Kids aren't stoopid and neither are adults.

Lazy, perhaps.

People don't want to take the time to learn about things.

Encyclopedia Galactica entries were helpful, too, as well as the experimental text pages, IMO.

Who's Who in the Legion of Super-Heroes was a god send. It came out shortly after I started reading the series. It actually made me a fan for life.

Might be time to redo it with the minor changes and make it a bit more exciting. Maybe less issues. No back up stories, etc.

Plus I think kids today with the internet can catch up quite quickly with the history.

When i was a kid in the early and mid 80s it was much tougher trying to figure out Earth1, Earth2, Legion, etc.

In the 5YG there was a lettercol where an established reader bemoaned the continuity while newer readers loved the story just for what it was. The depth would be something they looked forward to.

The Legion is too complicated thing is just a stick used to beat the book with. From what I've seen it's used because other lazy reviewers have used it, or to push an agenda to reboot/retcon.

If the reader isn't jumping into the middle of a story and is utterly unintentionally baffled, then the creative team, very much including editorial, aren't doing their jobs.

Successive reboots/retcons have not made understanding the depth of the Legion any easier (see not doing their jobs above) but the concept is a very simple one.

It shouldn't be too hard for a good writer to let readers know, at the start of a story, everything they need to know. There are only so many details that could be necessary to understand the plot.

It used to be that comics had a continuous influx of new readers, and this never stopped anyone from reading them.

The fact that we have to refer to the Glorithverse is a sign of two things:
1) Someone wrote a story where we need to know about the Glorithverse. We really shouldn't, most of the time, unless it actually comes up. We certainly shouldn't *now*, even if we were expected when the Glorithverse story was recent.
2) Many of the worst continuity snarls, Glorithverse included, happened because someone was trying to retcon something and fitting in the retcon and/or understanding what was changed by the retcon is headache-inducing. The cure? No retcons! At least none of the history-distorting kind of retcons that we've suffered with over the years.

This. Exactly this. I got on board with the Legion smack dab in the middle of the Emerald Vi thing in the Reboot. I knew NOTHING. My only helpmate was the little box that tells you each Legionnaire's name and (sometimes) their power. The story intrigued me enough, in one book, to give enough of a damn to be a fan for LIFE. I didn't NEED to know about the previous incarnation because it didn't impact the storyline AT ALL. It is, as Lash said previously, mostly laziness on the part of modern readers.

A clear idea of the concept and the ability to tell entertaining stories without losing sight of it.

Too much naval gazing and hand wringing of continuity minutia is pretty off putting.

Hear hear! And the only things you really need to know to get that storyline?

a) The Legion is a super team, and Violet is a member.
b) She's possessed by this Emerald Eye thingie and it's making her act nuts.
c) She got set off because Leviathan died.

The story itself fills in most other details that help you get the story - how Leviathan died, how Violet encountered the Eye, and why Kinetix is looking for it herself. Boom! You're ready to roll!

I wonder when ignorance becomes willful ignorance sometimes.

Is it really any more complicated than any Sunday night television show.