Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Would the LSH work better as a novel?

One of the thoughts that has stuck with me since reading the LSH is how much better it would be as an epic novel. In fact, I think the scope of this arc was hampered by the limitations of the comic format.
This latest arc would read really well as a novel.

In a novel, you can devote more time to a character's inner monologue. you can branch off and let us know what some poor family trapped in their A.I. home is thinking. Instead of just saying we have we kicked Dominator butt, you could follow the different teams as they scour the planet. and of course, you could get some top notch artist to provide illustrations throughout the book.

My experience has been that it's tough to do superheroes right in prose. It's such a visual genre. There has been good work done in this area, but very little of it has involved characters that also existed as comic book characters. So basically I think your arguments have some merit to them but it still probably wouldn't work that well.

I don't know if it would work better, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing what could be done. It might take a very extensive series!

Many of the issues raised in the Legion comics could benefit from more exploration than is possible in a pamphlet, in which most of the page is filled with images. Also, in a series, each book could focus on developing a few characters, with more extensive backstories. Personally, I'd find that quite satisfying - depending on how well written it was, of course.

Perhaps it's the action aspect of superheroes that don't adapt to prose. I'd be more interested in the novel form to develop character & ideas, so if the action got short shrift I wouldn't care. I'm a reader who skips over the details of battle scenes in historical novels....

While the idea of an LSH novel is intriguing, one of the key aspects of the Legion's identity, to me, has always been the visual representation: The individual costumes, the fantastic future setting, the imaginative art styles of Cockrum, Grell, early Giffen, LaRocque, etc.

This is one reason why Giffen's "5YL" didn't appeal to me. He made all of the visual elements unattractive and plain.

But I agree with FC that a novel would be great place to explore topics and character in a way that isn't normally done in comics.

I'm not so sure. I always thought I'd love superhero novels when they started appearing but with the exception of Cavalier and Klay (not really a superhero novel but a great one anyone) and It's Superman!: A Novel, all of them have been crap, IMO. And I don't think I want to take a chance on that happening to my Legion.

Giffen's idea for the Five year Gap would have made for a dynamite novel. I might even have bought a 3 to 5 book set.

..or maybe the self-contained graphic novel?

All in all though I'm with Scotty, I thought I'd like superhero novels but I end up trying to imagine what they'd look like instead of enjoying the flow of the story.

I like the idea of the Legion as a novel with illustrations quite a bit. I certainly think it has the potential to be fantastic in the hands of a good author, but, in practice, these sorts of things are usually crap.

I think one would almost have to move it away from a lot of the comic book "super-hero" conventions and more towards it's pulp sci fi roots in order to get it to work.

I feel that the legion would read well as a novel. We are all aware of the appearance of the characters (can even imagine in the "look" of a character to our liking AKA different eras in the Legion history)so the flow of the story will not be broken. Bottom line though a bad novel is a bad novel, if it is not written well it won't be fun. I would still read it regardless.

(Anybody who is interested in decent superhero prose should try the Wild Cards shared-world series, edited by George R.R. Martin. There have been seventeen books in the series so far and three more on the way. The editing gets spotty in some of the later books, and some of the authors involved are stronger than others, but overall this series comes with my highest recommendation.

A few people have also dabbled in online blog-form superhero fiction, too. Dave of Dave\'s Long Box fame has created the Velvet Marauder . There's also Doc Tesseract . And I wrote one myself at Sliced Bread 2 ; it's kind of hard to navigate (you pretty much have to use the date-links in the sidebar) but maybe I'll renovate it someday.)

I've read the first two Wild Card books, Matthew. I did enjoy them, particularly the alternate history.

Funny we should mention the wildcard series, have read the entire series through volume 15 (Currantly hunting for volume 16), and do agree it is a great read. The alternate history & superpowers without the spandex. I highly recommend it. Also along the same style of super heroics is J. Michal Straczynski's Rising Stars maxiseries. Still would read a novel on the Legion regardless.

Okay, this is my first post, but I hope I do good here. Let me state that although I shall disagree with this point of view, I do thoroughly enjoy novels. I am a bit confused as to how you think the comic format "hampers" the story, though.

In a comic, you get equal inner monologue (where you got your information, I don't know). In fact, issues tend to be narrarrated by single, if not numerous characters, in which we get a glimpse into their minds. This is the same reason comic-book movies tend to lose audience, because the audience does not get the feelings and inner monologue from the movie as we do from comics.

And illustrations throughout the book!!? What do you think comics are? The whole point of comics is that the art and character depictions can give you the level of description a paragraph can't. It's the writer's responsibility for the inner monologue, and the artist's responsibility for the detailed description. I wouldn't mind some novel stories, but the point is, the Legion has been a comic for many years, is a comic, and will only harness its true potential in comics of its future.

Welcome, Matter Lad.

You raise some interesting points, and I agree with most of them. For example, comics do provide a greater opportunity for inner monologue than movies.

However, too much inner monologue in a comic can distract from the story, in my opinion -- particularly an action story where "thinking" in battle slows down the action or is just unrealistic (i.e., how does the character have time to reflect on his origin while dodging exploding pumpkins?).

Alternatively, some characters spend issues reminiscing, which can be used as a space filler but is dreadful to read (and usually a waste of money). This type of inner monogue usually works better in novels, where there is much more room for the characters to stretch out and breathe, than in a pamphlet comic book or even a graphic novel, where the pages are limited. Therefore, I think wamu's question is legitimate.

Thank you, He Who Wanders,

I'd just like to add, thank you, that I do disagree with the constant ramblings of origins, especially during a fight. Yes, It is definetly unrealistic. I prefer the focus on the fight, that you may get lucky for with Batman, Nightwing, and Robin. I'd love to see this applied to Karate Kid, mostly, however Timber Wolf and Ultra Boy would be excellent choices also.

However, I still prefer the enjoyment of the comics. Its about the experiences had from a good read. You don't get the same feeling from a novel that you get from a comic. Where action would just be described in a novel, you follow the action panel to panel in a comic, which I loved seeing, moreso with a Batman/Joker fight from, O say Jim Lee. A novel does not have that effect.

I should just add now that the Sci-Fi aspect would also be harder to detail without the actual visuals.

welcome to the boards.

as far as illustrations go, I was thinking of maybe a an occasional group shot to provide an idea of what stuff looks like. for instance, some of those illustrated LOTR books.


as for as the Sci-Fi aspect, lots of old school sci-fi does a really good job of describing what stuff looks like. try any of Alfred Bester's stuff. of even the old school Lens Men novels.

Or even like a couple of guys named Otto Binder and Ed Hamilton...