Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Which TPB to teach LSH to college undergrads?

Hey folks
In the spring I'll be teaching my Rhetoric of Comic Books class again (#win) and I was thinking of incorporating a Legion trade. Any suggestions?

I tend to use books from a lot of different genres (so only 1 superhero book)

To give you an idea, the last time I taught this class, this was the reading list:
Maus Vol 1
Corn Boy
Transmetropolitan Vol 1
All-Star Superman
Death Note Vol 1
Walking Dead Vol 1

Thoughts?

I feel like Legion Lost may be an interesting trade to examine, considering the character work and a wide variety of elements (sci-fi, superhero fare, ethics, racism issues, etc). It also tells a complete story, with glimpses into the before and after.

Great Darkness Saga gives a better picture of what the Legion is truly like if that's a factor at all, as well as a more traditional and less psychological fight with the bad guy.

I thought of Great Darkness, but it's hard for me to figure out if it's accessible since it was such a big part of my childhood imagination

Legion Lost? Interesting idea

Yeah, that would be my concern with GDS as well going by memory. It's very epic and gratifying for a Legion fan - for an outsider it may get rather complex fast. I love the Universo Project (which I don't believe is in trade form) and the start of Volume 3 as a Legion fan, but like GDS I worry anything from a larger Legion series is harder to sell and resolve in one shot.

Legion Lost, the first volume, was enjoyed by a lot of non-Legion readers I recommended it to back in the day. A few of them became Legion fans or at least followed it into the new The Legion ongoing. For the rest, I was told it was a satisfying "done in one (trade)."

Superboy's Legion, maybe? Though I don't guess it's actually been collected either.

It's a shame about Superboy's Legion not being collected. That would be a good story as well, and easy to introduce as a "what if" tale off the basic Superman premise.

In all honesty, I would see if you could find the Digest Versions of the Adventure Era. I read some father had, and that is how I got into Legion. Or I would start with the Levitz stories. I would definitely choose something older so that you can talk about how not only the art evolved over time, but the business too. The people running DC in the '50s were targeting certain demographics, how did that effect how stories were told then vs. now. You could even dig into the '70s stuff that deals with race and gender and explore if whether or not the comics handled those issues well.

that is brilliant
I got into the Legion from those digests too !!

As we are currently reviewing the Superboy issues in the Archives 10 re-read thread, you might want to consider that volume. In the modern era of "epic" stories, it shows how effective simple one-issue or even back-up stories can be. Story economy, handling exposition, the contribution of the artist (especially Cockrum), and the changes in comics since the 1970s could be emphasized. You could also discuss the constraints imposed by page limits and why some stories work better within those restraints than others.

If you want an "epic," though, I would second Legion Lost.

There's a lot to be said for using the older comics when teaching rhetoric. The artist particularly had so much less to work with, yet we spend much more of our time discussing those works than anything 1990s on. There's connection between comic book rhetoric and creating graphics to present data and sell ideas. Complicated graphics tend to make the viewer work more but if the idea is to get the viewer vested, you've got a cart and horse thing. Great for selling. Not so good for presenting information. Soft sell, not hard sell. The older books, with their simpler lines and strict panel lay-out, forced the viewers eye. It was a very linear causalality.


Legion Lost was IMO an amazing work but I'm not sure it had a difficult job to perform. There weren't that many constraints on the story. It really wasn't bounded so much by what went on before. If it failed, no loss as it wasn't meant to be a book of beginnings. It was a book of endings.

If used, I'm not sure how you'd do it without including its bookends, Widening Rifts and Legion Worlds?


Legion Worlds had the bigger job IMO, to get the fan base back on board. It displays several different formats for expressing story and emotion. It recreated many of the characters from the ground up. There's diversity of approach. Was it ever bound?


Okay, now I want to go get the Legion Lost out of the garage.

Wow these are great ideas

It is fascinating that the older work does yield more discussion points and analysis, and the production side of comics at that time is absolutely integral to understanding the medium. You've all given me a lot to think about

The Archives series would be good but it's pricey (and I'm always concerned with how much books cost the students)

For a more affordable alternative to the Archives, there's always the Showcase volumes.

Good thought! I forgot about the Showcase books

I definitely think you should have them read about Tyroc and Invisible Kid II and discuss how the Legion dealt with racism in the comics. A common criticism of the Legion of Super-Heroes on the Internet is its lack of diversity amongst the humanoid characters.

That's one of the reasons I wanted to use either Legion or X-Men for the superhero book. Both use metaphors for diversity.

Same feedback I got as well. Two of my friends cried while reading the last two issues.

Legion Lost. I just realized there are two different series
Which one are you all suggesting?

My suggestion would be the original by Abnett, Lanning, Coipel, and others.

I'd recommend the first volume, which was a twelve issue limited series in 2000? 2001? It was collected in a hardcover edition...I'm not sure if it ever got a cheaper trade format that would be more economically friendly for the students.

Not that I should toot their horn over the Legion, but the X-Men have a lot of great stories that of course lend well to analysis - real life topics of bigotry and coming of age, as well as tropes and evolutions of super-hero funny books.