Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! UPDATE (12/20): Legion of Super-Heroes #1-- SOLICITATION! SPOILERS!

I really hope we see Dr. Mayavale in the newest reboot! Mark Waid is a big Silver Age Legion fan. How about it? Barry? Are you reading this?

Doctor Mayavale:
BRING HIM BACK!!!

The good Doctor recently made a big splash in Matter-Eater Lad: The Series!

Mayavale WILL RETURN!!!!

More thoughts.

First off I've been reading since 1983. I have not followed every version of the Legion. In 1989 when the 5 years gap story started I hated it. I was a very upset 14 year old. But it was so darn good I couldn't really stay upset my old Legion was gone. Even with the postzerohour Legion i didn't like it until 2001. I hope this is so good I have no option to like it.

Regarding the ULTIMATES. The Ultimates are just a glorified Elseworlds while the main title runs normally. If DC decided to name Waid/Kiton's Legion Ultimate Legion while keeping DnA/Batista on the regular Legion I would be very happy.

And finally Mayalave? He was a genetic engineer correct? Would love to see that back. I remember the big orange guy with four arms, etc.

Jorge

Destroying and slaughtering every character in the Marvel and DC universes would still be nowhere near the murder or death of any of our loved ones.

You're comparing fictional characters to real live people. There is no comparison.

If you compared it to James Bond...wait! They have replaced the actor that has played Jamed Bond several times...some have worked better than others. And just about everyonbe I know has a favorite (or "their") Bond.

Replacing Tony Stark in Iron man with the teenage Tony didn't go over well, and they retconned that. So who knows what will happen.

But comparing the murder of loved ones to comic book characters is not a good thing...there no balance of "magnitude" difference in your analogy between FICTIONAL characters and my 4 year old little girl. Totally different. Nothing can even compare the two.

Dove, he's not saying that fictional characters are more important. Any person with even half a degree of sanity knows that. He is NOT saying they're more important.

But as often happens with fictional characters, people become attached to them, sometimes even coming to regard them as a second family (Obviously still of less importance than any real person, even a person you might despise).

Thus, when a fictional character you care about dies or is changed beyond all hope of repair, you might conceivably feel a sense of loss, sadness, or perhaps, if you really liked the character, even a bit of despair, just as you would if a real person had died.

This isn't a slight toward real people, and no one is claiming that fictional characters are in any way more important than a real person. All that is being said is that losing a fictional person you care about can elicit some of the same sorts of emotions that we experience when we lose real people we care about.

Obviously, if it were a real person, I'd like to think we all would feel a much greater remorse and sadness and despair than for the loss of...say...Kinetix. The emotions for real people can and should exist on a far greater level of power and intensity, but that doesn't mean that we can't feel those emotions at all for fictional characters as it might cheapen the emotions we have for real people.

Can you honestly say that you've never been moved emotionally by the plight of a fictional character? That you've never been saddened by the death of one? That you weren't overjoyed when things work out for the characters you enjoy reading about? If you have done any of these things, then you should know that the joy or depression you feel at fictional events is a dim mirror of the joy you felt as your daughter took her first steps, or the despair when your daughter was sick and you knew there was nothing you can do for her. Again, even though it's a dim mirror,it is still a mirror, and by connecting on an emotional level with fictional characters, we can learn more about said emotions and how they relate to our interactions with others.

At least you realised what I meant...

Point is, if you're not attached to the characters in serial fiction, why read/watch/listen to it? And if they're all just going to be thrown out and replaced with similar-but-different characters, why SHOULD I give a damn about the similar-but-different characters, when they're not the ones I'd grown attached to?

Hey, I've seen a lot of silver age fans seeing this new legion as a restoration of their favorite lsh era. I'm just curious what, besides the old school names and lack of a snake, makes you think that the new series will resemble old school legion any more than it will the reboot?

From what I've read it seems more likely to be a pretty unique animal than a restoration of the Adventure era. I mean an indie rock legion raising hell and seeking adventures because the UP is too boring? Doesn't sound like the Moby Dick of Space to me.

I think you're absolutely right, Cad. Although I'm excited about the new legion, and the return of some of my favorite silver age characters, I don't for a moment delude myself that this is going to be a return to the Legion of my childhood. (And that's probably a good thing, because what interested me as a child, strangely doesn't grab me as an adult. Weird, eh? ) What I'm really excited about, is an end to the past era. I found the stories boring, and the characters only partially realized. There were so many fits and starts and subplots left hanging, never to be resolved. It was just hard to care anymore. I liked Gates (the best thing from the current era) and thought Shikari and Gear had a lot of unrealized potential. Other than that, I won't miss a thing.

I mean, really...with so many characters, we really *can't* get to "know" individual characters as we can with books with much smaller casts. (And even then, half the time we have throw out half of what we "know" depending on what direction later writers take.) So in LSH fandom, we latch onto the snapshot glimpses we get of each character during the little panel time they get. Those glimpses, by and large, offer us little more than the concept of the character. Therefore, for most of Legion fandom, we are attached to the concept of the character somewhat more than the character itself.

I'm getting that same vibe - that this will be fresh & new -- it's why I'm excited about the new series (admittedly, I wince at Waid's stale description, 'indie rockers seeking adventures across the stagnant utopian UP' or somesuch).

Take one look at that cover and you KNOW it's not any of the 30th centuries we're familiar with. I was impressed with Kitson's initial designs (and I'd LOVE to see the rest, BARRY -- AHEM -- email is fine & NATURALLY I'd keep it confidential! ). While the 'look' is reminiscent of superhero tights, it's just as likely that each person is wearing stuff that's culturally or personally important. (Sure, Element Lad appears a trifle Ren-Fair Mr. Wizard-y, but I suspect there's cause for that too.)

I'm hoping this tiny peek into their vision opens the way for bigger things, faster changes, fuller lives than what we've been getting in Legion.

Where did you get this idea, Rurouni? Ferro was underconfident, shy and a bit of a dim bulb, but there was nothing that suggested self-hatred to me.

People who hate themselves usually can't build and maintain relationships, yet Ferro was shown doing this on numerous occasions. He reached out to the others by redesigning costumes for them (none of them liked his designs, except Inferno, but at least he tried). He became friends with Triad and had enough self-respect to break off that friendship when she confessed that part of her thought he was stupid. He bonded with Karate Kid.

It is true that Ferro hated his appearance -- his misshapen face beneath the mask -- and tried to change it. But that's different from hating oneself.

I'm still in oblivious sticker shock though!! 40 pages of story and art for $3.00?? Is that right?? Or is the book 40 pages instead of 32 pages TOTAL with a few more pages of story and art?? Can someone clarify this for me?? If it's the latter then how many more pages of story and art will there be?? Maybe 30 pages total?? That would be really cool!!

Really looking forward to this event regardless!!

30 pages of story and art I think is what Barry said somewhere in one of these threads. With 10 more pages in the book I'm praying they'll add a letters page and special features like Who's Who entries or short backup stories.

I think we can rule out a letters page. Isn't it strict DC policy these days that their own forums have "replaced" the letters pages in terms of function and importance? I disagree with said policy, but I believe it is still in force, unfortunately...

On the other hand, I think Barry has hinted (though I could be wrong) that there will be back-up stories on occasion...

I *really* wish they'd bring back the text page features-- both 'fictional' and 'informational'.

I loved their inclusion in the 5YL issues. Some of the material was questionable in quality, but their usage wasn't.

Besides being a great way to explore characters' viewpoints and histories, they'd have the added bonus of 'freeing' up (at least for a page or two each month) Barry and/or whatever artists end up working on LSH.

TEXT PAGES... STET! STAT!

Consider this another vote for the reader-elections. C'mon... this is a storied part of Legion tradition!

AND a perfect vehicle for cross-promotion on the DC website.

Todd

Gotta disagree with this idea CK. History is full of people naming cities, provinces, even entire lands after themselves, or having other do that for them. Off the top of my head, I can think of "North and South Rhodesia, Victoria in Australia, the Victoria Falls, New York, (named after the Duke of York, not the northern city) Pennsylvania, Carolina, Virginia, need I go on, Hell even America itself is named after a person.

So why not name a planet after a person?

In fact I am surprised that we don't see more places in Legion Lore named after Valor as seeder of many worlds.

This fan of Silver-Age Legion doesn't see the reimagining as a return to the Silver Age, but instead sees the unlimited possibilities and chances to right past wrongs.

Chief among these right off the bat, for me: the return of Projectra, Sun Boy and Colossal Boy.

I
realized" what you were after as well...I just thought the comparison to loosing one's family as opposed to loosing characters that are in comics was off base. To me there is absolutely no comparison between the two.

I'm hoping the new series blends the best of its predecessors.

For example, I'm thrilled we're getting Sun Boy and a human Projectra back.

But I hope we ALSO see post-Zero Hour characters like Gates and Shikari (although I'd enjoy seeing Dawny as well. No reason why they can't co-exist.).

I'm really hoping this series is NOT a complete re-boot and that longtime fans don't have to sit through yet ANOTHER modern take on a classic Silver Age Legion tale. Live Wire/Lightning Lad losing his arm? Been there and done that - TWICE.

Rather, I hope Mark and Barry continue the history that we've seen in the last series, and update the concepts. The new "Colossal Boy" should know about Leviathan/Gim Allon, and understand the tradition he's gotta follow.

And if Mark and Barry wanna shuffle the cliques and relationships, and redefine why the Legion exists, be my guest.

- the Kid

That's too bad. As a kid it was one of the most important parts of my comic book experience. The Legion's letters pages brough us together as fandom instead of just being a bunch of fans.
Now when I reread the old issues of Adventure, Action and Superboy I always read the letters pages too. Letters from creators when they were just fans too are extremely cool.

This is a valid argument, though, to be fair, personalities did develop for most Legionnaires over time, both pre- and postboot. We got to know their back stories, meet their families, and watch them grow during several eras.

Many times, even the glimpses into their personalities were priceless and told us everything we needed to know. One of my favorite examples is Leviathan discarding his headpiece when one of the girls criticized it. This offered a wonderful counterpart to the by-the-books drill sergeant mentality he had been shown to possess. At heart, Gim was a softie who wanted to impress girls (or one in particular), as most teenaged boys do. How different this is than seeing him as just the guy who grows tall.

I'm... excited.

I thought I'd be as upset as Reboot about starting the series over again. Maybe it's because I got so attached to the postboot despite discovering the LSH during the Levitz era. Or maybe I'm just high on cold medication.

I think I'll take the solicitation to class tomorrow and see what the manga fans think.

It'll be interesting to hear their responses, please do!

Holy schmoley! Eight Xtra pages!!

This is incredibly good news My main gripe post-boot has been that the issues read like pamphlets, even when compared to v2 or v3. 8 extra pages will do nicely!!!!

Also, w/ regard to the concern of Cad Lad and others about the described direction ("indie rock Legion"), I think this is a red herring...they're going to decribe the new LEgion in the most intriguing way possible, but in doing so they have likely exaggerated what are only slight leanings of the book, or they are describing only an initial storyline that will change rapidly. I don't really think it will be as it sounds...