Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Fear of success?

Maybe I should start a poll on this, but I think it's better left open to discussion.

Which would be worse:

A:
In the span of the next decade, The Legion becomes a roaring success with, say, as many titles, movies, shows, and merchandise as the X-men.

OR

B:
In the span of the next decade, The Legion flounders and maybe even leaves publication for a time. It never regains a strong series, but has a few good runs as mini- or maxi- series.


Personally, I think option A might eventually drive me away, and even make The Legion less special than it is now.

I agree.

It's kinda like my favorite music bands. If they became sudden pop sensations, I'm sure they would become something I wouldn't like as much.

I much prefer them just under the radar...

I feel the same way about Legion.

I wouldn't want A or B. I'd prefer C:

The Legion keeps a steady following, has a few scattered mini- or maxi- series, maybe successful enough to have a Adventure Comics anthology companion series.

But that's just me.

Oops! Just re-read the premise. If it's the lesser of two evils, then...B. Definitely B.

I agree with Nightcrawler! I want the Legion to remian reasonbly popular, but too much popularity can ruin a series. X-Men used to be my 2nd favorite series, but now I can't stand them.

If I like something, I don't want to keep it to myself. I want it to become successful. So A wouldn't bother me as much.

I would like to see the Legion be more popular of course, but I think the series would be ultimatly weakened over the long term if DC were to capitalize on it by running several different series simultaniously using different creative teams or, worse still, multiple editors.

The Legion needs to remain just small enough that it can get by with one clear creative voice at a time.

I agree. With maybe the occasional mini or maxi by different teams...

Popular enough to where TPTB are not tempted to raise sales through cross-overs, connections to present DCU, or visits by Lobo.

"Make no little plans," said the Chicago architectural dreamer, Daniel Burnham.

I want a Legion movie with 50 members, preboot to newboot, in 3-D "Shrek"/"Final Fantasy" animation. And I want them to start on it NOW.

And I want my college friend Tim Johnson (since then, director of "Antz" and co-director of "Sinbad") to do it, so he can give me a job designing the signs and graphics of 31st Century Metropolis.

Is that too much to ask? I think not.

More down to the point ... I see "under-radar fan-favorite" vs. "over-the-top with fan-distorting clamor" to be a false distinction. Nothing prevents the Legion, inherently, from being X-Men Big and undistorted.

What will permit it, though, is harder to find: Someone of the iron will and firm vision of a Gene Roddenberry. Short of Paul Levitz stepping down from being publisher to do this, I don't see anyone approaching such a role. And I think Levitz wants his weekends free.

I'd say option A would be the worse of the two.

The attributes that make a comic a top-seller tend to exclude that title from my personal tastes. Any title that achieves great success doesn't stay there forever, anyways. So even if the Legion were to achieve smashing success, it could get back to "normal" after a few years.

Sticking to the wording of your question, which of these two would be worse, I think I'll go for A -- if only because your option B states that even though it doesn't have a strong series it'll have a few GOOD runs as mini's or maxi's.

I could take either as long as the stories are still good, so if the question boils down to a plethora of mediocre product versus occassional product with good quality, I'll pick good quality.

Definately "A".

The thing we miss is that the Legion's greatest strength is its greatest weakness - its not set in the present day DCU. As such, were the Legion ever to suffer their second true cancellation (the first being their dropping from Action way back when), it would kill the team as we know it.

If a present day book is cancelled, the characters can guest-star elsewhere, keeping awareness up, and if the series is later revived with the same characters, some idea of how long has passed would be available. Whereas, anyone reviving the Legion after several years out of the picture could twist the team, their setting, their universe any way they wished - more drastically than even the 5YG, if that's possible. And given the "continuity-lite" culture which seems to prevail, any such changes would probably go entirely unexplained.

On the other hand, in option A - The Franchise - the scope of the universe solely available to Legiontime writers serves to mitigate much of the possible damage of such a route. A spin-off team need not even interact with the core Legion book[s], but could focus on the planetary champions of another world, or a culture, or be set on the UP's fringes, allowing for vastly different situations, politically, morally and personally without impinging on the core - more so than the ubiquitous X-Franchises, which must nominally deal with the same themes, on the same world, usually in the same country.

So, option A for me.

Now my wording is confusing me, and I don't know what half of you really want. Not that that bothers me--I relish the confusion.

Anyway, for those of us, including me, who aren't fond of the thought of a much more successful title, are we doing anything to see that that does not occur?

Do our own frequent references to Legion history on message boards and such actually turn off new or potential readers?

Do our demands for more evenly apprpriated panel time make it impossible for new or potential readers to find a favorite on which they can latch?

Do we do anything else that will either doom use to a slow decline, or relegate us to our current popularity level?

I'm a little surprised by many of your reactions.

Without criticising any one person (thus do not assume I am insulting you personally), I have never really understood the point of view that the more people like something, the less you like it. Good art can be really popular, as can good comics. I didn't stop liking REM when they were no longer the little band from Georgia who played local clubs in Nashville, nor did I stop liking U2 when The Joshua Tree went global. THEY BECAME MORE POPULAR BECAUSE THEY PUT OUT BETTER MUSIC. I had many friends who decided they had "sold out." In hindsight, they had done anything BUT sell out. Deciding you don't like a piece of creative work because it's not "your little secret" anymore strikes me as immature.

Let's not forget that the X-Men are where they are now NOT due to endless crappy miniseries, crossovers, and sweatshop cartoons. The X-Men are one of the world's best known comics largely on Chris Claremont's back.

If the Legion becoming incredibly popular (and maybe even overexposed) due to an historic, groundbreaking, critically acclaimed run by a singular creative talent who has a vision to share with collaborators and can make that vision accessible without compromising makes some of you not like the Legion anymore, so be it.

It sort of begs the question though: Would you have been Legion fans during Paul Levitz's run, when the Legion had great sales AND a singular creative talent? Would you have decided not to read the Legion because it was too popular?

of the two, I think B is worse. Because if Legion flounders and/or leaves publication, the chances of getting a mini-series, (especially a good one) would be pretty slim

Well, I just look at the top selling books and I know I'm not interested much in any of them. So that's my excuse for associating popularity with something I would probably not like. It doesn't rule it out, however - I like plenty of best-seller novels, music, movies.

I wonder where the Legion ranked back in its Levitz heyday. Comics in general were selling more then - maybe it was still skimming the bottom quartile of the top 100.

Well, there WAS the time DC picked its top two sellers for the Baxter experiment. The top seller was the Wolfman/Pérez New Teen Titans. Anyone remember the second-top seller, the other book to get the deluxe treatment? Anyone...?

I believe it was....

LSH, Starting with the infamous 5YG.

That was a rhetorical question :rolleyes:

But now you've said that, I'd better point out that there were 63 Baxter series issues written by Levitz (hence the reply to the "selling in their Levitz heyday) [+ 12 or so non-reprint "Tales of the LSH" issues) before the 5YG renumbering...

Well put, AFOB. Let's not forget that X-MEN also remains popular because its core concept -- alienation for being different -- is something with which every teenager of any generation can identify.

The Legion's core concept -- a club of super-heroes -- is perhaps less easy for general readers to identify with. It harkens back to a nostalgic era when joining a club was always a good thing. It made you one of the cool kids. Today, perhaps the sense of alienation (and belonging with other freaks) speaks louder than being well recognized and admired as one of the elite.

The title of your thread is aptly named, Awkward Pause Boy. Fear of success is what this is all about. Fear of success is very limiting to anyone, not just comic book series. I prefer to remain optimistic that the Legion can be both a sales winner (which is not the same thing as a Top Ten comic) and earn its success through excellent stories and art.

So Opton B is the worse for me.

Plan A? PLan B? oh.....how about a combination of both?