Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! The future of 5YL Legion

From Geoff Johns' current column :

Dennis asks:

Whether it’s Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Booster Gold or now the Legion of Super-Heroes, you’ve become known as the go-to guy when it comes to fixing continuity glitches. And you do it in such a way that embraces the characters rich history, which is outstanding!

Maybe this is being picky, but one detail missing from the LoSH ‘rebirth’ is any mention of the “Five Years Later” Legion and all the characters that sprung out of Keith Giffen run like Kent Shakespeare, Kono and Celeste, Ivy. I know you have one issue to go, so maybe they could still turn up. I’m hopeful, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen.

Either way, I’m loving “Legion of 3 Worlds” and I wouldn’t want you to change a thing, but can you let us know if the 5YL Legion were ever on the table, and if so can you go into any of the thought process behind what part they could have had. Or are there any plans for them in the future?

Hey, Dennis. “Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds” has one more issue to go, which is printed and out July 22! So keep reading…


My take is that 5YL is an alternate universe. Hopefully Johns will correct his mistake of not including it as canon. And then Keith Giffen can start working on a new LSH book. One that will ship in time.

Johns originally promised that Perez was drawing every Legionnaire so the 5YL group always seemed destined to appear.

My bet is the Trapper will recap his antics so far and those will include the pocket universe Superboy, the 5YL team plus the SW6 team.

So 5YL will be canon but like the threeboot and reboot wiped from existence as per Dan DiDio's statement that there will be only one Legion after Lo3W.

Johns must be taking lessons from DiDio in the art of non-answers.

I'd be surprised to see the 5YL team show up in #5. It's already a pretty crowded playing field. The other two legions that are already there are alternate universe varieties. If they bring in 5YL, then they open up the clone/SW6 problem, which makes 5 Legions (4 worlds)... but who knows? Maybe we get a one-panel "Trapper recounts his manipulations" scene.

When the dust settles, I don't know why some form of the 5YL couldn't slowly come to be.
Geof's Legion isn't too far away in age, one side or the other, of that time period, is it?

I can see Kent, Celeste and Ivy still cropping up in future stories.
Even a new batch of SW6ers seems possible, since the Dominators are still a part of the Johns timeline, not in some Phantom Zone, or anything.

It might not happen in Lo3W but the way should be open for those things to happen.

Just hoping.

I think the introduction of the SW6 batch was part of the 5YL downfall. No way will DC do that again. But the idea of a Kono or a Kent Shakespeare of the post Lo3W universe turning up and posssibly joining the Legion should be an option for whoever is writing it.

Given that the Johnsboot versions of the characters will survive, I hope that the different characters from the other incarnations join a much larger Legion. Hell lets's have the Subs and academy students who got in in the 5YG as well so the Legion would then look like this:

Lightning Saga/Classic
----------------------
Cosmic Boy
Lightning Lad
Saturn Girl
Phantom Girl
Duo Damsel
Chameleon Boy
Colossal Boy
Supergirl (the current version would do)
Brainiac 5
Superboy/man
Ultra Boy
Star Boy/man
Shrinking Violet
Sun Boy
Bouncing Boy
Matter-Eater Lad
Mon-El
Element Lad
Lightning Lass
Dream Girl
Sensor Girl
Shadow Lass
Timber Wolf
Wildfire
Tyroc
Dawnstar
Blok
Invisible Kid II
White Witch
Polar Boy
Tellus
Quislet
Magnetic Kid
Night Girl
Chameleon Girl
Rainbow Girl
Nightwind
Atmos
Crystal Kid
Fire Lad
Visi-Lad
Infectious Lass
Chlorophyll Kid
Porcupine Pete
Stone Boy
Color Kid
Calamity King

Invisible Kid I - dead
Chemical King - dead
Karate Kid I - dead
Ferro Lad - dead
Karate Kid II – dead
Dragonmage - dead

5YG/5YL
-------
Reflecto
Kono
Impulse
Neon
Reflex
Catspaw
Computo
Veilmist and possibly the other 3 Khunds as well

Earth 247
---------
XS
Gates
Shikari
Gear
Thunder
Andromeda
Kid Quantum II
Gazelle

Kinetix - dead

No, no: this is the same problem the Legion has always had ever since Jim Shooter wrote the Adult Legion story. (Paul Levitz tried to disarm the trap with LSH v2 #300 but Giffen and the Bierbaums couldn't walk away from it.) Giving the Legion a destiny that they have to home in on just a) handcuffs the writer and b) annoys me.

I'm okay if Johns and whoever find a way of using the 5YL stuff as something that's already happened, but I don't want DC using anything, whether it's the Adult Legion story, or the 5YL stuff, or Kingdom Come, as something that's going to happen.

b) isn't such a problem but point well taken on a).

5YL as a "past" doesn't preclude "fill-in-the-gap" ir untold tales issues, which kind of serves both worlds and gives 5YG fans those stories hinted at.


Though, those summaries that were written (someone here knows what I'm talking about) have probably near become canon they were done so well.

Giffen himself said in interviews that he ignored the Adult Legion future (and he did: 5YL was nothing about Shooter's Adult Legion). In fact, Jeph Loeb used the adult Legion more than TMK. The fact that Giffen used SOME ideas from that period doesn't mean everything was written a priori.
So I don't see much problem with that. And I think, with the whole concept of Multiverse coming up, those other Legions will become Earth-Something else else, just like Kingdom Come and Captain Marvel.
In fact, I'd love to see 5YG being the Legion of Earth-4 (Charlton - Thanks Sarcasm Kid!). It would fit the mood.

You mean Earth-4. Earth-8's Lord Havok. I wouldn't mind them being the Legion of Earth-1, like an Earth representing the continuity changes that occurred on New Earth after the first Crisis.

Not a bad idea, indeed. Hopefully, it will not stay underutilized as Earth-2 forgotten idea on JSA.

Well, we won't know until Multiversity. Morrison hoped that a bunch of comics would spin off that, I hope so to. They could do three, or five, Legion books.

Legion of Super-Heroes

Legion

Legionnaires

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes

Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century

(Because I WANT THE CARTOON BACK!)

At this point I'd be happy with one.

I don't think that anything would be 'cannon'.

For example, we've already seen Mysa rescued from Mordru quite a bit earlier than in 5YL (Mordru is weaker, Blok is still viable and Mysa isn't so psychologically destroyed) and Rond has already died.
He also has a child already and we don't know by whom ~ Andromeda was the mother before.

I just meant that certain characters could (or not) be introduced from 5YL.

I certainly think that enough has happened differently that nothing else HAS to happen.

I'd just love to see a Kent introduced or Chlorophyll Kid have a daughter named Ivy.

Yes, that's what I meant.
And I don't want the SW6 clones either, we already have a young legion present in the 247ers.

I don't know about that, but I would like a bit of a merging and perhaps one or two spinoffs.
In the X-Men movies we see multiple generations interacting.
I've always wanted an academy book, an older adult legion, a younger legion, an 'edge' book and a Wanderers type.

Good Lord! I hope not!!! Yeah, I enjoyed the 5YL tales to some degree, but Giffen's work lately has been pretty hit and miss (mostly miss). Him in control of the Legion wouldn't be a good thing IMHO.

That's true of most any of the Legionnaires created after the Levitz/Giffen series ended. XS has already been folded into that continuity. Wouldn't be difficult to bring back Kinetix or anyone else who came after.

I'd like to see some of the Reservists and Subs finally get their day. Infectious Lass could be an awesome character -- instead of being treated as a punchline. Nightwind and Lamprey seemed to have potential as well.

Agreed!!!
I'd like some of the Lallorians, Xanthans and Wanderers included, too.
Life Lass, Gas Girl, Quantum Queen and Duplicate Boy come to mind.

All this talk got me thinking: with so much potential, why can't we have a monthly Legion title? I think it would be awesome!

Gee, I dunno, Ricardo... how do we know that the Legion could carry their own title? It'd be much more prudent of DC to audition them in a backup feature for a few years first, to see if there's any interest.

Maybe if we're lucky they'll get another miniseries one of these days. You know, like DC does for the proven top-selling characters like the Human Flame.

Nah! Won't happen. DC will be buying some other no-sales characters again soon and spinning them off into minis first. "Herbie" anyone?

Seriously, it will take a Johns or a Morrison or some other writer that Dan DiDio likes to come up with a new series before it happens. Lets be honest Geff Johns writing "the adventures of Double Header" would sell and if Johns wanted to do it DC would let him.

i would punish griffen with writing for a legion of just karate kids...none that he could destroy or kill. that would be my version of hell for him.

I've seen Lo3W #5. There are connections to FYL. Johns remembered Computo. And Catspaw. And Dragonmage. And sooooo many others.

So I read Lo3W and there is nothing on what 5YL could be or would be or is. In fact Johns even puts L.E.G.I.O.N. there for apparently a good ol' fun.
So we can say now there is JOHNSbootverse, with lots of Green Lanterns and Flashes but no original Legion. Which is the 5YL Legion.

The 5YL isn't the original Legion. The original Legion were wiped from existance in Crisis on Infinite Earths, just like the original Superman, Jimmy Olsen etc. After COIE there was a very similar Legion that had the Pocket Universe Mon-El/Superboy instead of the real deal and no Supergirl/Elastic Lad/Insect Queen.

That reality was wiped away when Mon-El destroyed the Trapper and created the Mordruverse which in turn spawned the Glorithverse. The Legion of the Glorithverse (ie 5YL) had no Superboy/Supergirl, but did have Valor, Laurel Gand, Kid Quantum, Triad, the Proty-Garth and Sean Erin, so was nowhere like the original Legion. The Johnsboot for all its faults is far closer to the original than the 5YL.

This is a defensible position to take, but you have to admit that it's equally defensible to say that the post-CoIE and Glorithverse Legions followed on continuously from the original Legion and should be treated as the original Legion for most purposes.