Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! RESULTS: DnA's Legionnaires: Evaluation

Each Legion writer or writing team leaves an impact on the characters they write. Has DnA's impact on various Legionnaires been positive, neutral, or negative? Which characters have prospered under their run, and which have suffered?

I'm surprised at how many I voted for nuetral, although I guess I shouldn't be.

Ultra Boy and Apparition are definately a negative.

And DnA's favorites (Imra, Brainy, Jasmin, Shikari) are positive, although the amount of screen time they took from everyone else is a negative IMO.

I still stand by my opinions though that DnA had a good run during the first three years!

I actually thought the "screen-hogger" status of certain Legionnaires had a negative impact on the characters. Some of them (read KQII) I'm just kind of sick of seeing.

some pretty interesting results !!!

Matthew.

How can we evaluate Gim and James Cullen when both have been dead for the entirety of DnA's run? Neither have appeared even in a flashback, unless I missed something.

Well, for instance, one might take DnA's lack of use of the two characters to mean they've had no impact on them, and the answer would therefore be "neutral".

Interesting.

Lots of neutrals just because we hardly saw the characters.
I voted negative on a lot of the older, Adventure-era folks, but positive on newer ones. Maybe just cuz DnA actually added Nura, Brin, etc.

XS and Gates are neutral bordering on negative because they've seemed like extras these past couple of years. Monstress is a positive for me, despite her death, because they actually made me like her. And Ultra Boy, Apparition and especially poor, poor Kinetix are definitely negatives!

I think a lot of votes would be negative, simply because people didn't care for the changes made to a character (i.e. Element Lad.) But the changes themselves I saw as a postive thing, giving characters like Monstress some great moments. Ditto with Sensor, folks hate her being a snake, but the change has made her more interesting (the robot arms turned me off the character.)

While DnA haven't ruined Imra, their focus on her might have caused some backlash. Things like Violet show this, they haven't really played with her, but her lack of air time got her a negative review. It's interesting to get everyone's opinions, especially the extreme results.

Only a couple of days left folks, so get in there and vote!

RESULTS

Cosmic Boy
Positive 38% (15)
Neutral 41% (16)
Negative 21% (8)

Pretty close between neutral and positive here. Big things Cos has done since DnA took over include helping to lead the resistance to the Blight, organizing and leading the SUBS after the Legion had been disbanded, serving as de facto leader of the re-united Legion, using his influence to get Kid Quantum elected as his successor, and beginning a relationship with Kid Q. Also, we found out that he was an adherent of the Church of the Last Son, though he finds Superboy to be quite a dissapointment.

Saturn Girl
Postive 44% (17)
Neutral 18% (7)
Negative 38% (15)

Imra's pretty closely split between positive and negative. She began DnA's run as leader of the Legion, was instrumental in defeating the Blight, served as leader of the Lost team before resigning after it was revealed that "Apparition" was a mere illusion created by Imra to help her keep Jo calm, shared a kiss with Jo, lost her fiance Garth when he sacrificed himself to get the other Legionnaires home, led a return mission to the Lost galaxy, shut down Universo, ignored her fiance when he returned from the dead as "Jarth" until they finally reconciled in DnA's last issue.

Live Wire
Positive 31% (12)
Neutral 13% (5)
Negative 56% (22)

For Garth, the majority seemed to not like what DnA ended up doing with the character. He seemed to die early in DnA's tenure during the Blight invasion, but came back at the end, was one of the Lost, became leader of the Lost team after Imra resigned, resigned his own membership in order before sacrificing himself to kill the Progenitor and insure the safety of the Legionnaires and their home galaxy. I suspect he would have done slightly better in this poll had DnA left him dead, but instead they brought him back in Element Lad's crystaline body, where he's managed to save the day a couple of times since then, most siginificantly by defeating Singularity.

Triad
Positive 51% (20)
Neutral 41% (16)
Negative 8% (3)

Most seemed to think DnA's treatment of Lu was good for the character, and very few seemed to dislike what they did with her. She basically ran Brande's business interests when he went underground after being booted as President, and freed Shikari from Earthgov labs. She did a little butt-kicking on Ra's Al Ghul, and gained a new costume and new position as "Situation's Executive" on Legion World.

Apparition
Positive 21% (8)
Neutral 28% (11)
Negative 51% (20)

Most people reacted negatively to Tinya's developments over the past few years. Pregnant when the Legion disbanded and her husband was lost, she spent a year hiding out on Rimbor and hanging out with gang member Timber Wolf before giving birth to "Cub". On the long trip home, she solved the mystery of the "Vyrgan plague" and discovered Robotica was on its way, though the Legionnaires had independently figured out both of these things by the time she arrived. Since then she kind of found out about what happened between Jo and Imra while they were Lost, and her hanging out with Brin has only helped to estrange their marriage. And she's fretted around about Cub's super-fast growth quite a bit as well.

<more to come...>

The next batch of results:

Leviathan (Gim)
Positive 3% (1)
Neutral 69% (27)
Negative 28% (11)

Well, the fact that he was dead throughout DnA's term and therefore they didn't use him seem to make "Neutral" the favorite choice, though more than a quarter interpreted their impact as "Negative", perhaps because not reviving him was consider a negative, or maybe that Vi's continued use of the name had a negative impact. Maybe destroying the space station that was supposed to be his memorial counts as a negative? I'd actually like to hear the reasoning of the one person who thought DnA's impact on him was positive, because I'm just not seeing how that goes.

Kid Quantum (James)
Positive 0% (0)
Neutral 85% (33)
Negative 15% (6)

Similarly, Kid Q remained dead throughout DnA's tenure, and the only glimpse we got of him (I believe) was in a photo on his sister's bedstand. The results for him were overwhelmingly neutral.

Chameleon
Positive 38% (15)
Neutral 56% (22)
Negative 5% (2)

Cham was a fairly major player in DnA's early stories, Legion of the Damned and Legion Lost, where we saw him become one of the most pragmatic of Legionnaires, and develop a role as a combat instructor for the Lost team. He also developed a bit of a friendship with Umbra. His relationship with Spark was briefly touched on when the team got back, but little substantive has been done with it, and still seems to kind of be in limbo. While a majority seemed to think of DnA's impact on Cham as neutral, there was significanty more positive than negative votes.

Invisible Kid
Positive 59% (23)
Neutral 41% (16)
Negative 0% (0)

Well, no one seemed to think the Kid had suffered under DnA's tenure, and a majority thought the last few years have been positive for Lyle. He was absent from DnA's first story, and during the Lost period he was a member of the SUBS under Cosmic Boy's leadership. After the reformation of the Legion, he played a significant role in the team's first return mission to the Lost Galaxy, as well as scientific strategizing during subsequent crises such as the Ra's al Ghul matter and the Robotican invasion. He was also fairly heroic during the first part of Foundations, which led to him being kissed on the cheek by Brainy, whatever that was about.

XS
Positive 31% (12)
Neutral 51% (20)
Negative 18% (7)

A slight majority interpreted the past few years as being neutral for Jenni, with a few more positives than negatives in the remaining votes. Jenni was fairly heroic in escaping from the Blight, but her major role over the past few years was during the Robotican invasion of Xanthu, in which she and Star Boy proved quite the effective team.

Brainiac Five
Positive 79% (31)
Neutral 15% (6)
Negative 5% (2)

Clearly one of DnA's favorites, Brainy was featured heavily throughout their run. As one of the Lost, he pretended to work on a solution to get the team home to keep everyone's hope alive, though he really had no idea what to do. He also had to struggle with his distrust of Shikari's power. He's been instrumental in every storline since, most notably the Robotica arc, where he had to defeat his "son", Computo, by giving him what he wanted. Late in DnA's run there was the mysterious kiss of Lyle, and we (along with Chuck and Gear) discovered he keeps holos of a number of Legionnaires in sultry poses. The vast majority thought that he fare well under DnA's tenure.

Spark
Positive 36% (14)
Neutral 49% (19)
Negative 15% (6)

While slightly voted DnA's impact on her as "neutral", there was significantly more positives than negatives. Her big spotlight of their run was Legion Worlds #2, and most of her characterization has been in terms of her relationships to her two brother, Mekt and Garth. We found out that the postboot Legionnaire, like the preboot, seems to be very comfortable undressing in front of her teammates, and she briefly changed her name to "Live Wire" to honor her brother, before being convinced by Kid Q that the best way to honor his memory was just to be herself.

Star Boy
Positive 59% (23)
Neutral 26% (10)
Negative 15% (6)

Thom's development over the past five years was clearly seen as positive. He seems to have lost the unreliable Kryptonian-class powers that he had pre-DnA, and gain much control over his gravity abilities thanks to Khund training. He put that to good use as his homeworld was invaded and conquered by Roboticans. Once the Legion was reformed, he was reunited with his girlfriend, Nura, who soon became a Legionnaire in her own right. DnA left him with unresolved plots concerning a prophecy of his gravestone and powers fluctuating once again.

Violet
Positive 10% (4)
Neutral 44% (17)
Negative 46% (18)

Nearly everyone considered Vi's use over the past few years to be either neutral or negative, with a pretty even split between those choices. While clever use of her size-changing powers was shown while she was a member of the SUBS, she's largely been a very large piece of background scenary since the Legion reformed. She was back to her old competence in DnA's final story, however, spearheadin the Espionage Squad's plan to follow Jarth to the second galaxy.

Andromeda
Positive 3% (1)
Neutral 74% (29)
Negative 23% (9)

Laurel was the only living postboot Legionnaire not used at all by DnA (though they apparently had plans to bring her back), so the votes seemed overwhelmingly neutral in regards to their impact on her.

Kinetix
Positive 5% (2)
Neutral 3% (1)
Negative 92% (36)

The single most overwhelming result in this poll. Apparently, voters didn't care for what DnA have done with the character! After being used really well in the first few issues of the Legion, turning her into a terrorform, radically altering her personality and giving her ambiguous powers, while her teammates apparently seemed to not care about this, apparently wasn't something Legion readers enjoyed having done to her!

Elemet Lad
Positive 26% (10)
Neutral 13% (5)
Negative 62% (24)

Voters overall thought turning the character into a near-omnipotent villain wasn't a good thing for this incredibly popular Legionnaire. Well... at least they let him do one last great heroic deed (saving the Lost Legionnaires) before turning him into a villain! I suppose letting Garth inhabit his body counts as another thing that was done with the character, and not something most Legion fans seem to have been in favor of either...

Ultra Boy
Positive 26% (10)
Neutral 23% (9)
Negative 51% (20)

He's apparently one of DnA's favorites, in that they've featured him heavily, though they've made him probably dumber than ever, had him kiss Imra then become insanely jealous at Tinya's friendship with Brin, and he seems to be doing a pretty crappy job at parenting. Overall, a majority of votes responded negatively to what's been done with the character the past few years.

Superboy
Positive 36% (14)
Neutral 33% (13)
Negative 31% (12)

The most evenly split of the votes, with the positives enjoying a slight advantage over the neutrals and negatives. Kon-El was brought back to the Legion's fold in Foundations, and has become a pretty major player on the team despite being severely picked on by the leadership lovebirds. Some despise his presence on the team, some are just glad to see Superboy back in any form.

Gates
Positive 18% (7)
Neutral 59% (23)
Negative 23% (9)

The majority seemed to think DnA's impact on the Vyrgan Legionnaire was neutral overall. Afterall, they seemed to do a decent job with him when they wrote him, but he spoke in about two issues during their entire tenure!