Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! So are they going to *DE*-Boot the Legion now?

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They said all the 52 worlds are identical in 52. I think countdown is the thing that drives the divergent time lines to form. Legion, Kamandi, Kingdom Come etc.

I would Levitz Legion in the multiverse and call it Superman's Legion. You could even give it a title by that name. The only rule would be that it's interaction with the dumb DCU crossovers would be limited and the characters have to interpreted using 30-50 year old continuity. Also this would prevent the changes in the modern DCU from effecting it.

The interaction with the current edgy DCU would be reserved for a current 'teenage' Legion where there'd be no rules about how the characters are interpreted. Essentially they'd recognize that this Legion are new versions of those characters and not the originals.

Not unlike the original setup of the JSA/JLA.

That was actually DC's official answer to the question awhile back.

Here's what we know:

Jimmy Olsen is targeted for death.
Eclipso tries to seduce Mary Marvel.
The Trickster and Pied Piper are handcuffed together.
Ray Palmer is searched for.
"Unto Man Shall Come A Great Disaster" which has something to do with Darkseid.

It also seems to have something to do with working out the consequences of 52, such as the fact that the multiverse is back.

So, what's people's take on it?

Are they actually going to deboot the Legion and bring it back to the Legion thats been dead for 13 years or not?

Right now, I think they're just testing the waters.

By next year... yes.

Though I don't think they'll be "debooting" per se, in that they'll wipe out the current continuity. I think they'll just shift their focus to a different world in the multiverse.

No, they're not bringing back the Legion that died 13 years, but evidently something that resembles the Earth-One Legion that ended with Crisis on Infinite Earths 21 years ago. Big, big difference to many fans.

The 3boot Legion will probably continue to exist alongside it for the forseeable future but I doubt we'll see the post-Crisis versions in DC's 52 universes (or however many universes are left standing by the end of Countdown #0). Instead, look for new ones to emerge like the Kingdom Come Legion, a Tangent Legion, Legions inspired by Batman, Wonder Woman or Lex Luthor, and such.

Perhaps, perhaps not. The Earth-1 Legion survived a lot of retcons while still be THE Legion after all.

Well said! When I read #1 of the new series, which I had been looking forward to reading a lot because of Waid and Kitson involved, my first reaction was... "Huh??? Where is the story???"

Unfortunately that didn't change since after Supergirl came on board. So I don't care one little bit about this incarnation of the Legion, I really don't think it is working and reading those JSA issues with the old heroes popping up made me really happy. I really can't feel sorry for the fans whose two years of tiny continuity without a plot might be wiped out after MY 30 years of continuity full of legendary stories have been wiped out just the same in 1994...

I really can't feel sorry for the fans whose two years of tiny continuity without a plot might be wiped out after MY 30 years of continuity full of legendary stories have been wiped out just the same in 1994...

Thank you, some of us happen to like BOTH of the stories. However, I for one, believe the Legion was hopelessly sprocked up beyond all repair by the time of the Reboot.

I won't go so far as to say that I like all Legion stories (you can keep the Conway stuff, probably a lot of the Silver Age stuff, and the Legion on the Run, for instance), but I have a high regard for most of it. So this:

is quite contrary to my point of view. What, Chemical King's feelings are more important than those of a newer fan, because he doesn't like the newer stories? No. All Legion fans are created equal and all have the same right to want their favourite stories in continuity. Currently, fans of the threeboot have that and fans of the original, SW6 and reboot Legions don't. And that's not fair. But we won't fix it by making itn unfair in somebody else's favour.

I don't think it was hopeless. They could have solved a lot of the problems by giving Brainiac 5 a haircut.

It all depends on this: if New Earth Superman and Supergirl turn out to be resurrected versions of Earth-One Clark and Kara, the Legion may very well share the same origin.

However, judging by what the Superman/girl writers have to say, they are new incarnations of Clark and Kara meant to recall the iconic aspects of the Silver and Bronze Age characters, not the originals themselves. The next year will tell, I suppose. It doesn't really matter to me.

As for the post-Crisis Legion(s) from 1986 to 1994 (and I do agree the situation was pretty hopeless in 1994), I have the feeling DC will either never refer to them again or explain them away as a "nightmare", as other posters have suggested. The latter option is similar to what they did recently with the Metal Men -- Doc's 90s adventures as a robot were the result of neglecting to take his meds. Personally, I'd prefer if they spun them off into a separate universe of their own, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Well I take everything with something of a grain of salt really. For example, Superman is a hero that has a career spanning 70 years of comics.

Now, intellectually, we understand that there have been three Supermen at this point. Golden Age Superman whom officially died as of Infinite Crisis, The Silver Age Superman whom seems to have been nulled by Man of Steel, and now the current one that is being slowly patched with Silver Age continuity.

For me, though, there's only one Superman. Despite all the retcons and so on, the essence of the character is in a single superhero. It's an intellectual distinction but its one that I happen to make.

If these "New/Old" (I use this to refer to characters that are SUPPOSED to be the characters we know and love) Legionaires are close enough to the Old continuity to pass muster then I'll accept them. Like the Doom Patrol, everyone was DEAD at the end of their series. Now they're all alive again and no one is questioning how. We just move on.

If some elements are different like Saturn Girl isn't married to LL or has no kids, I won't disregard it out of hand. I had enough problems with the Mon'El as Superboy Reboot with laurel Gand but I actually liked Laurel by the end of it all. I could have coped, this is likely to be far closer to what I consider the "real" Legion.

(Oddly, I'd like the current WAID Legion to be considered a Legion: Birthright style series and part of the past---I also wished that they really would make the Reboot Legion into Earth-2's Legion despite what Infinite Crisis said)

The Great Disaster might be a reference to Kamandi's future or at least the event that might lead to it (if that is indeed DC's intent)

Also of note, Meltzer has said that the Legion was established due to an inspiration of something that happened in our time.

Possible connection?

I think they already made Kamandi's future canon by destroying Bludhaven while building an underground vault beneath it.

Charles is on target for those that didn't see it. We actually saw Bunker "Command D" in the Battle for Bludhaven mini.

And speculation has led many to believe Kamandi will play a role in Countdown--even if not the character, but the events leading up to his timeline.

A little strange for a single series that threatens planetary decimation but DC loves its properties. Amazing they can insert a nod towards Kamandi but the Legion continuity gives them so much Hell.

But yeah, thats a "cake and eat it too" scenario.

I think it's jumping to conclusions to say that DC will "deboot" the current Legion back to the late bronze age equivalent. My sense is that they're using the bronze age Legion to make a point about the newly returned Multiverse. We don't know what that point is yet, though, and won't know at least until the Lightning Saga is complete, and possibly not until Countdown wraps up.

For me, I've enjoyed just about every iteration of the Legion over the last 25 years with the exception of the Legion on the run and pretty much all of DnA's run. I have a special fondness for Levitz's Legion and I'm glad to see them back, but I've also really enjoyed the WaK Legion and would be sorry to see them go.

I gotta think that DC has to be looking at the sales figures. The sad truth is that over 50K picked up Waid's Legion #1 but over 20K of those have since gone away in the past two years. This current version is not meeting sales expectations. Why not jump start it on the Legion 50th anniversary year with something fans are responding positively to? (and I mean a lot of fans!). The Levitz Legion has got a lot of history and success to draw upon. I think we will be seeing a lot of it for the next year or so, in crossovers and hopefully in the main title itself. The Legion fans are out there, but the current version isn't satisfying enough of them, myself included.

It#s not about "newer is better" or "the old continuity is better" but about which continuity lasted longer -> who has (or will be) loosing / lost more. And it is obviously clear that fans of the threeboot (and of that alone) are loosing much less than we all have lost 1994.

Rebooting any comic has nothing to do with fairness anyway. It's only about money and what some creators deem to be a "bold new direction"...

I really don't have ANY feelings about the Threeboot - I hated the Reboot, but the Threeboot? - no feelings at all, total irrelevance to me...

They don't have to reboot anything anyway. Nobody has to lose anything. If DC wants to tell stories about the original Legion, they can do it without throwing away the current Legion. There's the multiverse, multiple futures... there are any number of mechanisms DC could use to plausibly keep any number of different Legion versions around (although they almost certainly wouldn't feature more than one version regularly in a comic book, and I'm not suggesting that they should), and to do so in a nonconfusing way.

How exactly do you quantify that? Seems to me that you equate longevity, and therefore the existence of more material, more "story", as indicative of higher quality and the ultimate reason for why "your" version of the Legion is more worthy of survival than others, which is a concept I really do not understand. Sure, by wiping out of existence a long-running Legion version you are going to lose a lot, which is certainly a shame. A long run does however not automatically signify quality for all readers, since everybody's tastes are subjective, or make losing other versions less of a loss for their fans, who might have other, equally valid reasons for thinking "their" Legion" the best.

The problem I have with your statement is not that you hold one Legion in very high regard and dislike the "other" Legions, that's perfectly okay - as I said, everybody has different tastes, and I see absolutely nothing wrong even with severely criticising those versions you might not happen to like, or basing your preference of your favorite Legion on the fact that there is an immense, rich amount of history behind it.

What sticks in my throat though is that you seem to enjoy other fans potentially being "screwed over" just like the pre-ZH Legion fans. What exactly do you want to achieve by stating "now you'll see what it's like to lose your continuity, you lovers of different 'boots, you"? Saying that it is justified that those "other-booters" lose their versions since those are clearly defficient in the first place on account of having existed for a shorter amount of time, and then additionally taking delight in the whole cancelling idea is like me saying "Well, my car got stolen once, and that totally sucked, but now it has happened to you too, ha ha!" This whole schadenfreude aspect strikes me as a bit less than magnanimous, especially in light of your favourite version coming back anyway.

PS.: Regardless of my feelings on the threeboot Legion, I'll believe it'll be cancelled when I see it.

What about the sales situation in 1993/1994? The Legion had disappeared from the charts before LSH #50 and TPTB would have given their right arm for sales of 30K. Where was Legion fandom then?

What about in 1988/1989, at the end of the Levitz run, when sales were said to be so stagnant they considered rebooting back to Day One? Where was Legion fandom then?

What about after Crisis, in 1986/1987, by which time the once #2-selling title had plummeted down the sales charts and the reprint experiment was cancelled. Where was Legion fandom then?

Why have Paul Levitz and other DC executives approved one relaunch after another instead of trying to find a way to rework the original version? People are conveniently forgetting that for the 8 years preceeding Zero Hour, the old Legion was a sales failure, too. The fact the post-ZH version topped out at ~25K and the Waid/Kitson reboot is losing buyers is not a victory for supporters of the original version. It merely supports TPTB's suspicions that the franchise is moribund.

If the tide is turning towards a "de-boot" (or what people perceive as such), we'd better hope that every single voice on the Internet message boards clamoring for the return of the old Legion represents at least 5,000 actual buyers who will stick with it for at least three years. Because if the next attempt fails to satisfy TPTB's sales expectations, chances are there is no more Legion. Not for you. Not for me. Not for anybody.

Trom's perspective and analysis is as usual, thorough, thoughtful and convincing (checks in the mail?).

Seriously, the Legion has been on the brink of extinction many times. I think it survived into the 1970s just because DC had pages to fill, and it was a place for young creators like Bates and Cockrum to bust their chops. It was the weed-out course at DC.

I will say that I don't think there's much danger that DC's going to completely shut down the Legion. Here's my logic.

1. DC is always going to publish a certain number of comic books.
2. DC only has so many characters to populate those comics.
3. The Legion's sales might not be everything we want them to be, but they're a lot better than a lot of other DC books, including some that nobody thinks they're going to cancel.

I'm sure DC's looking for a way to improve sales on the Legion. I don't know what they're going to settle on. They may switch to a different version. They may even, for all I know, let the franchise take a break for a year or two (although I doubt it). But I don't think they'll mothball the Legion permanently, simply because they don't have that many stronger candidates to do a monthly series about.

All right, maybe I was a little too histrionic, but the Legion could easily go the way of the Doom Patrol and Metal Men and become a side-show act.