Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! No more [I]NEW[/I] Legionnaires

While I love seeing brand new characters every now and again I think the number of characters hovering around who were once legionnaires has become ridiculous.

Seriously, Waid and Barry already have maybe sixty or seventy characters hanging around to choose to put on the team.

I say the new reboot should keep the number of new characters to a minimum when we already have so many fantastic characters doing nothing.

Anyone agree? Disagree?

I'll agree to an extent. Characters who have gotten the shaft postboot like Dawnstar, Chemical King and Tyroc deserve to appear first.

I agree. Who needs another bunch of throw-away newbies when we have perfectly good classic characters (like Star Boy) who LOOK like they're new.

I have no problem with introducing new characters...as long as they're NEW characters. I have a problem with rebooting/retooling established characters (Sensor Snake). I think it's disrespectful to both the actual character and his/her original creator.

I agree, to an extent.

I, of course, want the return of Kinetix (post-tail, pre-terraform), especially because she was developing as a character, then she just got lost in the mix.

I follow the "agree to an extent" notion.

I think new Legionnaires, if made to be unique in area of powers, personality, & appearance can really add to the team...but for the most part I think the amount of potential Legionnaires out there in the lore is so great we should definitely let them have their time to shine.

In other words, I wouldn't object to a newbie or two, but they're definitely not people I want on the team right now.

Tough one. Not sure if I rather see a brand new giant character who is of a giant race and can shrink to 6ft tall. I may want this to be a new character rather than Gim Allon.

But overall I agree. We have many many characters from different Legion versions why bring brand new characters in the mix.

I agree with MLLASH that some characters ignored by the postboot should appear.

Though I think DnA did an excellent job with the Kwai and Shikari as a simple indeginous aliens rather than flying stereotypes.

With that said I wouldn't mind Dawnstar back. doh!

Jorge (& Tyroc!)

What he said...

In the future, there should be endless possibilities, right? I'd love to see really great original characters come out of Waid and Kitson. I'd hate to see them try to shoe-horn in EVERYONE who's ever been part of Legion lore before they can introduce new folks (I can hear the conversation now: what about the Malduuran spies, Hate-Face, Westerner, Polecat and Storm Boy? don't forget them!)

All the creators had the chance to put in some new folks, no matter how short their run. I really liked Dawnstar's other lover Jodhan, the Academy members, the anti-civilization Justice League, the DnA Workforce, and the LSH family members who were victims of Dagon. Some of those characters lived past their initial appearances; others didn't.

I admit - I was put off by the radical rebooting of Condo, Jeckie and Dawnstar. It was a mistake, IMO, not to make them completely original characters. Hopefully, this creative team will go ahead and do that.

It's bad enough we're getting a bunch of 60s throw backs without lumping in the 70s losers with them. Tyroc and Chemical King were dumped early on because they were rubbish characters - so I hope we don't get them back.

New characters worked OK for the last reboot - at least its a sign the writer isn't just arrogantly assuming every reader interested in the same Legion era as he is.

I enjoyed the volume 4 Tyroc personally. His older appearances were pretty bad.

Jorge

I forgot he was in volume 4. Oh well! That was crap as well!

Ultra Cyborg - I'm curious as to why you'd rather the new Colossal Boy wasn't Gim Allon? I know the origin is a pretty big departure from his original one but his original one never seemed that important to his character anyway and certainly never provided any story potential.

Lots of characters have had their origins tweaked over the years and at the end of the day which would you rather have - a cool, interesting Gim Allon fighting with the team, or the reboot's dead Gim Allon lying in a grave?

Dead Gim Allon lying in a grave.

Yep! Killing Gim was definitely a mistake in the last reboot - coz he had quite an interesting personality as it stood out from the rest of the group.

But my point is that mistake was made. We should live with it! Creators shoudl work within the milieu they're given instead of chucking their toys out of the pram and insisting on doing it all their own way. It's just really lazy and arrogant if nothing else.

I welcome new characters. If there were no new characters allowed wouldn't be stuck with the founding three? Two of my all time favorite Legionnaires are Tellus and Blok. What if they were not created and brought in? It would be nice if they came back sometime soon too...YOur new all time fave could be just issues away. Sky's the limit I say! Soon long as they are written well. That is why I am excited about the new series. The book was not being written well when DnA left. Did they need to start over? A matter of opinion I suppose, but if it brings back characterization, I'm all for it and new hereoes.

I don't want new characters like Gates, Monstress, XS Or Thunder. Or worse...reboots like Sensor or Shikari.

So many old guys and girls deserve a big role in this Legion.
Example:
Spider Girl
Veilmist (More powerful teletransporter)
Chemical King
Tyroc
White Witch
Blok
Andromeda
Night Girl

For me only Kinetix and Gear could be re-imagined.

Someone just fell off my Christmas card list!

Tried to send this message earlier, somehow ended up in another thread (and probably sounding rather silly as a result...)

Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of this thread! Certainly one could argue that great characters such as XS and Gates would never have existed if other creators had felt this way, but this is like saying everyone should reproduce as much as possible, because look at all the wonderful people who wouldn't have existed if their parents had one less child!

The fact is, there are probably close to a hundred potential previously-existing characters from which to draw membership, and just as engaging in limitless reproduction is irresponsible because it diminishes the resources available to each life, adding more characters would be equally irresponsible to the ones that already exist. Every character is someone's favorite, and a new Legion without their favorite would be a great disappointment.

Also, it's a really cheap writing device...can't think of a good plot? Make up a charcter, give him/her problems, and go! I think a much greater challenge is to come up with stories regarding the pre-exiting LSH characters...

A similar (but somehwat oppositional) point: I think it is also ill-advised to re-intro old characters in a diminished role just to "give a nod" (e.g. Condo Arlik), as this limits future writers from using them in a more grandiose fashion.