Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Lightning Saga Legion in Action!

Superman's hand is bleeding. That certainly has got something to do with the red sun but he is flying...oh, wait! He's also wearing a Legion flight ring! That explains the flying.
Oooooh, this has *gotta* be good!!

You guys probably have already read Action #858 so the answer to my question may have already been answered there but, how do you explain this?

http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/Oct07/previews/Geoff_Johns_31st.html

How come Superman doesn't remember Brainiac 5 and seems surprised at learning Brainy comes from his future since he definitely knew the Legionnaires in Lightning Saga?

Yeah, what Dain said.


Loved the artwork overall, though the eyes were kind of big and scarey and the skintones yellowish in some panels.

LOVED the 2 page splash of the silver age Legion. Didn't really bother me that Triplicate Girl and Ferro Lad were included with members who came later. I took it to be a representation of all the Legion from that area and not a particular moment in time, if that makes sense. (though Chem and Kara were missing, natch).

Nice variation of the baxter Legion logo...

Interesting that they tweaked the logo...

I think I've stumbled across a plot point here.

1. The sun of 3007 (or whenever it is) is red.
1a. It was yellow the last time Superman saw it.
1b. A sun can't change colour naturally in such a short time, and anyway a red sun is so much bigger than a yellow sun that if it changed naturally in that time, Earth would be a cinder, if that.
1c. Therefore someone must have tampered with it.
2. Starman mentioned, in the Lightning Saga, that Sun Boy was missing.
3. I propose that these things are related.
4. Dr. Regulus?

Pffft. After all the false advertising about "the original Legion", Johns doesn't even make a half-hearted attempt to honor the Legion's first and most seminal story. What we get in its place is a garish splash page plus four pages of vapid and pedestrian banter. The founders didn't come to invite Clark to join the Legion---he pleads with them to go to future. No reimagined retro space-age costumes, no initiation pranks, no Martian ice cream parlor, no yammering, bubble-headed Cosmic Boy, and a grossly mischaracterized Saturn Girl to boot. The time sphere is the only relic of Otto Binder's far superior story. Imo, the only thing Johns accomplished here is to sap all the magic out of the first meeting of Clark Kent and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

The art didn't work for me. Dawnstar looks 45 years old. Even the teenage versions of the Legionnaries look old. Everyone's eyes bulge out like they have thyroid disease.

I gather the first few pages were meant to set up the alien pogrom in the 31st century, but as a "homage" to Kal-El's legendary flight from Krypton, it's pretty noxious stuff. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I don't care to see child killing become standard fare in super-hero comics. This is the second time in recent memory, the first perpetrated by Johns, much more graphically, in one of the earlier issues of JSA.

At least the "original Legion" debate can be laid to rest. It's not them. And no, they're not close enough for me. Thank Rao there are alternatives.

Well, it would have been great to have the original story reproduced exactly, but we can't have that, can we? There's no Superboy.

I agree though that the original costumes of the 3 Legionnaires would have been a nice touch, even in a somewhat modernized version.

Well, we can't have the "original legion" back anyway, as their story has been changed both by Crisis on Infinite Earths and in completely unknown ways by Infinite Crisis, so i don't mind an "updated" origin story as, after all, we didn't know how Superman met the Legion in the New Earth continuity.

So far, from what we've seen both in the JLA/JSA crossover and this first chapter, this is more what the Legion is to me than the Archie Legion or the threeboot version.

I didn't expect the original story to be reproduced but I had hoped they would try to recreate its spirit and characterizations. This wasn't a modernized version of Adventure #247, it was a completely new story, and a rather bland one at that.

I agree with Tromium that Johns has made unforgivable changes to the Legion's first meeting with Superboy. Whatever this is, it is most definitely NOT the "real" Legion it was purported to be.

However, it seems that this also is not the current New Earth Superman, but some silver age analogy.

Note that the clumsy Clark is much in keeping with the traditional mythos. Moreover, does anyone else find it odd that Perry chastises Clark for only having Jimmy for a friend at the paper, when Clark's been balling his best reporter for a couple of years now? Moreoever, note that Clark has no wedding ring.

I'm also not super-thrilled with the apochrophyl group shot. As noted, most of the team depicted never served alongside Triplicate Girl, while many also never met in the original clubhouse. And why does everybody keep forgetting about Chemical King?

Given Saturn Girl's new personality, I wouldn't be surprised if Supes cant remember the Legion after crisis because she badly botched a mindwipe after having s fling with poor confused Kal-El. Didn't Supergirl set them up a few times back in the day?

And yes Tromium figured out what really bothered me about the look of the founders in the flashback. Imra, in particular, a bad case of hyperthyroidism. I didn't mind that look once Kal went to the future though, its clear they're under lots of stress.

As for the story itself funny how they keep coming back to the Xenophobia angle. I don't think it was ever a part of the LSH until Levitz installed the polymer shield. After that, successive writers have consistently remixed the concept. It was a driving undercurrent of both TMK and the early ZH Legion and Id argue that the current fear of the unknown in the threeboot is just a remix of it. So GJ is just giving a fourth remix of the xenophobic future and we'll see what comes of it.

And my reaction to the baby scene is a comment on the change in the American socialpolitical landscape since the 1930s. I find it sad that the Kents' acceptance of Ka-El requires more suspension of disbelief than the scene in this issue.

I'm excited about the images I've seen and can't wait to get to the CBS this weekend.

I disagree with Gary Frank nay-sayers. I think his art looks spectacular and is very welcome.

Never been a fan of Gary Frank. It seems that all his women look crazy... He just can't do eyes and it's worse on female characters LOL

You see... I don't understand this at all. Why exactly can't we have the original Legion back? It seems to me DC could just say, "Oh yeah, we're going to start publishing the original Legion again, and all their continuity up to point X is intact", and there you go. What exactly is stopping them?

What we can't have is the original Legion back and have it's continuity square with the mess that DC has made of the rest of their universe. But I could care less about that. We've done the "something resembling the original Legion but with their history changed to fit with our current version of the present DCU" thing repeatedly since Crisis. Why should I think this is any different?

Man! There is NO pleasing some people. And I thought I was a harsh critic.


I don't get it. There seem to be so many people hating the artwork and writing on this story (which, overall, I quite liked) and raving about the same on the SLSH #35 story, which doesn't appeal to me at all. I have to go read them both again to see what everyone loves/hates so much.

Sorry, I agree with EDE.

Why not just publish a Legion of Earth-One with all of it's history intact and keep it as far away from the modern day DCU as possible.

They could absolutely do that if they wanted to. As long as, you know, they didn't use the word 'Superboy'. That would be the only problem.

Not knowing the "current" run all that well, is it possible that this is some "past" of the current Legion?

Anyway, the scans are exciting.

Isn't funny that they brought back a multiverse and seemingly revived every major pre-crisis world in more or less their original form except for Earth 1 which they now insist was reborn in New Earth. Thus New Earth is as mishmashed and convoluted as it was in 1987.

They brought back Earth 2 complete with missing Kryptonians and even brought back the Captain Carrot funny animals with everything intact and picked up the story years later. That's different from the Legion where what they're doing is no different that what divided the LSH fanbase in the first place.

Legion in Action may turn out to be a neat story but the fact is their focus is rewriting the past instead of giving us new stuff.

No, it wouldn't work. For instance: the Lightning Saga Legion's Star Boy is a white guy who is currently a member of the JSA who calls himself Starman. But the threeboot Legion's Star Boy is a black kid. They're both Thom Kallor of Xanthu. (For that matter, the threeboot Legion is generally younger than the Lightning Saga Legion.)

They're supposed to be his friends, they can get away with calling him Clark, or Kal, and even have worked with him at some point before his public outing as 'Superman' in the 20th century, thanks to the wonders of time travel and telepathy.

It wouldn't grossly violate the *theme* of the Legion of Super-Heroes to have them be inspired by Superman's legacy, and have teamed with him a time or two, or pulled him into the future (and then, at his insistence, removed his memories of that future, rather than risk messing up history) even with the 'no Superboy' dictat from Mrs. Siegel. It would basically be housekeeping, shuffling a few minor details around to accomodate both the past continuity and the current legal nincompoopery going on.

Alright just to throw this out there... if, hypothetically someone brings back the legion excatly as it was before the First Crisis... then what... either you keep telling the same stories again (in which case you may as well go back and re-read those stories), or go ahead and advance the story - in which case there will inevitably be someone who says well that's not my legion, that's not what they will do. The point is, its impossible to have the legion be what it was. The only way for that is to copy the old stories verbatum...

I'm not trying to defend DC, they've screwed up their fair share. All I'm saying is there's no such thing as a static comic book. You look back to pre-crisis comics, look at superman, etc... its all different. It's all changed over time... The legion has not had the opportunity to grow nearly as organically, because of the re-boots, but nonetheless... you can't expect the same things...

My point is that when all is said on done people shouldn't stress this much over continuity. It all comes down to how a good a story is. It should be judged first and foremost for its inate worth... Is it a good story?

-rant over-

-Alex

Well, sorry but...how about picking up after the Crisis and then telling all new stories that don't involve -

1. Changing people's backstory (this includes Superboy, just don't write about him until you can use his name again. Show him in flashbacks, etc. Just don't say the name. Plus, Wildfire in Red Tornado's body?, "Sensor Girl" + Karate Kid?, sexually ambiguous Dawnstar?, etc.)

2. Changing everyone's costume. Start with the Perez/Giffen/Lightle costumes (and then, if you want, change them over time...).

3. Make the future totally and completely change since the last time we saw anything around LSH vol. 3 #18 or so.

Evolve and tell good stories from there (or pick another spot in the past). Simple, easy.

Why must everyone re-invent the wheel and change everything so drastically? The problem I'm having the most with all of these 'boots, except possibly the Reboot era and the Cartoon (First Season) is that the future of 1000 years from now has to be bleak and ultimately (for me) uninteresting.

When you read ADVENTURE COMICS #247, you want to join Superboy and his adventures in THAT future. When I read the current writers visions of the future, I want to stay home cause I'm bored with it all. Been there done that and there's nothing there to snag my imagination.

Writers who mine the past never want to take us (and the characters we love) along on new directions. They want to see just how much they can change and warp everything we knew about them and then tell us the same old story, over and over, and over again.

Nightcrawler for President!

That's exactly how I'd like to see things done.

I agree with Nightcrawler generally - particularly on the bleak future angle, but I don't feel this Legion, at least the little I've seen of it, is so "drastically" changed compared to the original.

C'mon guys, how long has it been since the origin of the Legion was this close to the original? I say it's been too long and this origin is pretty close. 3 kids from the future go back in time and make Clark Kent a Legionnaire. So, the kid is not Superboy. We can't have Superboy. That fact alone, name or no name, means there's no way we can have the original "origin" back intact.

How drastically altered is the 3boot Legion compared to this or the "classic" one? Way too drastically I'd say.
And no, I'm not down on the 3boot (except a few parts of it), I actually like it. But admittedly it's the most far removed from any Legion version of the past, even the Archie Legion.

I don't know what Saturn Girl's characterization is in this issue, haven't read it yet, but I feel it's something minor.

As for me, I'll say it once again, nothing would make me happier than have the 3 boot, and an "adult" Legion book starring the Lightning Saga Legion and the cartoon based comic.