Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 - Preview and Spoilers

You'll be shocked to know that nothing is explained.

And yes, according to LSH #8, page 2's continuity, he's supposed to be the last of the people of Trom. But that was several continuities ago. You really can't expect writers to be bound by their own stories?

Other than Mon-El being described as "fallen", no information is given on missing Legionnaires. So, yeah, I guess we're supposed to be left wondering happened to X-Ray Girl and Matter-Eater Lad, which would probably be more of a concern if those characters had ever been identified on panel to begin with.

From here.

Well! at least my memory is sharp thanks for the confirmation, Nighty

ah well. thanks EDE! I was really hoping for another panel moving the origin of Gold Lantern along... or maybe seeing X-Ray Girl actually x-ray something.

So do we know who the character in green above/left of Jon Kent on the final page?

And is that Wildfire below/behind Lightnng Lad?

Jo is the guy in green and Fire Lad is the Wildfire figure.

No, I've got them. These are the two I mean.

Shadow lass top pic and that would be Jo in bottom pic

Okay, I see Shady now, but isn't this Jo?

I think this is supposed to be Color Kid (or maybe even Chlorophyll Kid?)

Yeah, I was thinking one of the Subs, but it didn't really look like anyone from any of the Subs group shots.

Thanks for including the link. Reading the rest of the interview was enlightening in other ways as well, particularly that Bendis is still working on Legion. It just won't necessarily be monthly. He says it is a work of art and it takes as long as it takes. I can live with that (although does that mean that all the writers and artists who managed monthly schedules over the years were being sloppy with their art?). Still I could live with it better if the writer wasn't making as many sloppy and inconsistent gafs in their story.

Well I will continue to hope for the best. It feels that the plotting at least has improved in more recent issues.

As for Ferro, I don't mind him carrying a sword, but there is nothing in the design that connects me to the Ferro we know from the past (or even from this series). A number of characters appear to have some cyborg parts in Future State so while his is the most extensive and I suppose a metal cyborg body has some parallels with an iron body, that's about it. Even more importantly his disfigured face has always been an integral part of the character so why is his face now bare and normal looking? Seems a bit weird to me.

Yeah, I don't think anyone would have connected that character with Ferro Lad if it wasn't for that interview.

Also, he was called "Blast Boy" in other promotional materials, right?

Both are jo, but the chest emblem where the green flight trail comes from is the same as the one caped jo has.

Very well said, Stile.

^ completely agree

I just finished reading issue #2 and, well, it was just "ok"...... let's just leave it at that.
Lots and LOTS of questions came to my mind like "why do that to a character?" and "what happens now?" ... stuff like that.

Thank goodness it's over and we can all start to heal as we slowly forget these past 2 years of "Legion" stories. Hopefully being fickle as Bendis is, he will abandon any further dealings with the Legion. Fingers crossed!

I hope someone in DC steps up, looks at the *ahem* situation that the Legion is now in, and takes charge of this mis-step in story telling, deciding to then go back to basics with our heroes. Which would mean that this DC creator would utilize the traditional Legion that fans have grown to love over the past 6 decades, not yet another new, impulsive jumble of colourful but hollow characters put together in a rushed fashion. That's what this last "Fourboot Legion" felt like to me over these last 14 issues. Nuff said.

My vote goes to revisiting the classic Legion, with their more recogonizable looks, but giving the new iteration a unique hook or edge if you will, to their existance and purpose. Not unlike what Waid did in Threeboot (but perhaps not as harsh).

IMHO

The original Superboy and his Dream Team Legion, they have their timeline intact in the new Linearverse, in Generatios Forged. Maybe is a new hope...

Good twist on the real villain being Titan and the storyline was quickly resolved but lots of unanswered questions. Was it arrogance that made the Titan people careless so they could be imprisoned? Why didn't they wipe out everybody? Etc etc. I could be happy enough with this version of the Legion going forward. Lots of potential to answer those questions and tell new stories. I could even get used to Brainiac 7. However, would another creative team want to take it on or start fresh?

One thing I didn't like at all was the reference to "new normal" - took me right out of the story.

Looks like DC is keeping their options open on the Legion - this version, another new one, some variation of the original.

I thought the idea was that Imra's super-cluttured mind so distracted the Titanians that it allowed them to be imprisoned,, but I don't know.

Agreed about "the new normal". I seem to remember a couple ofbother times that Bendis has used slang that seemed way too 2020s, but that's a particularly egregious example.

I had a look at this and that is what happens.
However it doesn't reflect badly on the Legion anymore than if it had been the JLA doing the same. Nobody beats the "baddy" here.


What does this mean for the Legion itself? Not much I think. These Future State stories are very much "it could happen this way or it might not" and remind me of the "Legends of the Dead Earth" annuals from several years back. That the Legion depicted is the Future State version doesn't write it in stone anymore than Wonder Woman outliving everyone else, including Superman, is likely to stand up to the next few years of story-telling.

I will say that how Diana tells it paints them in a good picture if a hopeless one along with the rest of the universe.

I'm not going to hold my breath unless one of us gets into that company and makes changes.

This is like the third time they said it would all matter again within like six years, and the first and second times turned out to be lies. They said the original Multiverse was back after Convergence, and that wasn't true. They told us stuff would be brought back with Rebirth, and instead they gave us a mangled version forced to conform to the New 52 like Wonder Woman being Zeus's bastard or Kara Zor-El having replaced Linda Danvers in the look back at "Our Worlds At War" and that fake-ass Donna Troy running around thinking she was Wonder Girl. Just to rub salt in the wound they butchered the Superman Family by tampering with Clark and Lois's memories to make them less aware of the changes and acted like they were always supposed to be joined with their awful N52 doppelgangers.

It's easy for them to say "everything matters again" when they don't actually do anything with "everything."

So based on a Nightcrawler's recommendation on the delay thread, I picked up the two digitals of this. My general thoughts (a month late):

PLOT - Best part of the series. The twist about who was responsible really saved the story for me, as I thought it was an interesting take, as I don't think we've seen that group in that evil of a role.

CHARACTERS - I'm still trying to get to know these rebooted characters, but there did seem to be some progress in the characters getting more distinct voices (note - I have only read up to issue 5 of the Bendis series, so I don't know if that improved from 6-12). Before, it seemed as if there was Brainy, Imra, and everyone else. Now, Chuck, Luornu, Tasmia all seemed to have more distinct and unique voices.

My big issue was that I am not a fan of the character redesigns. If the writers are gonna make such a significant change after just one year, I'd love to know why we need a Cyberpunk Imra, for example. And can we please settle on a design for Shrinking Violet?

ART - I think the problem I had with the art was not the quality, but rather the EXTREME change in style between a year ago and what is on this page with supposedly the same characters. I think the style by itself is fine. But (and I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who's read through what most of you have seen over the course of over a year) the change from the Soo character designs and style to Rossmo's is very jarring. I may have felt differently if I had read the first dozen issues over the course of a year, I don't know. I may re-read this again in a week or so (which I may, as I did enjoy the plot) and have a different view.

In the end, I think my main challenge with this concept and apparently where they are going moving forward, is that this Legion doesn't seem to have earned the right to have a 5YL-type scenario where everything has gone to hell. In the original run, they had a lot of history with which to work (and even retcon) and the reboot didn't have a similar scenario until after 5 or 6 years had passed, so there were in-universe events to work with and the changes that occurred actually had weight because we had invested in the characters and overall storyline. This just seems to feel like throwing spaghetti at the wall, so to speak, without a thought out plan.

Again, just my two cents based on someone trying to come up to speed on the current version (and hasn't finished) while also rereading the reboot.

I think you will find most people here in agreement with you about your comments. Most of the characters never did get much individualisation, the art was jarring but in my case I found it growing on me, and the story was better than many of the regular comic. I guess Future State was a bit forced by DC management but Bendis seemed quite happy to run with it. Your point about the team not having had time to "earn" the change feels valid. Bendis has said that the Legion will be continuing from the Future State position which is disappointing since we had hardly gotten to know the previous version but if he can write more stories in this vein maybe it will be a plus.