Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Waids - Birthright. Good or Bad?

Let me say up front I have not read this.

Yet I see so many posters worrying that the new Legion will be "as bad as Birthright" (I paraphrase) and almost unreadable. Yet I also see rave reviews regarding his work on Fantastic Four.

So a simple question

What happened in Birthright that was so bad? Why do people dislike it so?

Conversely if you loved it why?

I asked this questions recently and got answers that scare me on another board. Retro for Waid's sake basically. Can't wait what ppl here have to say.

Jorge

Wish I could tell you but I quit reading it after the first couple of issues. Not because of the wrting but because it showed up so sporadically that I lost interest. I'm not even sure that I finished getting the full series. Heck, did it even finish yet?

It's done.

I only Byrned a couple of issues of it, but Godvision, Krypton festooned in \S/'s like some sort of fascist symbol and "Superman is the real guy, Clark is the disguise" were more than enough.

Godvision? I'm not sure I get that.

I think I'll stick my neck out here and admit I kinda liked Birthright. It wasn't incredible and I'm not sure that its retcons are gonna stick, but I liked it.

Thing is most of the retconning was done, it seemed to me, less for the sake of Waid's whims and more to make comic book continuity more closely resemble that of Smallville. That is where I think the whole, 'put \S/'s everywhere,' 'Lex and Clark knew each other in Smallville,' and 'Clark you gotta learn not to stick out so much,' came from.

All in all, after reading the whole twelve issues at one sitting I think its a pretty solid updating of the basic Superman year one story. I mean, yeah, elements of Byrne go out the window, but for god's sake Man of Steel is twenty years old and really not that great. So if you're into seeing how DC's trying to make Superman appealing to fans of Smallville (and I don't think the series quite succeeds there) or have an OPEN mind, you should check it out.

P.S. Why is that folk can't be civil when they dislike stuff on message boards. I find all the hurtfullness disturbing.

I liked it as well.

I think what hurt it most was that it wasn't announced as being the new, retconned origin until part way into the run.

I didn't start out to be though, did it? I understood that didn't occur until after the book started coming out. Like Waid had intended it to be that way but TPTB hadn't fully decided it would be so.

I think you're right.

Either way, it confused people, and alienated a few who preferred the previous continuity.

For me, it was the first Superman book to hold my interest in years.

So with Lex and Clark knowing each other in Smallville we get a return to, or at least a nod in the direction of, all those wonderful silver age stories. Including Luthor contacting the LSV, Luthor visiting the future and sending the legion to the phantom zone.

"Clark, you got to learn not to stick out so much" strikes me as pretty much the whole point of the Clark Kent persona. Reboot raises an interesting point, is Kal-El pretending to be Clark or is Clark pretending to be Kal-El.

Not so sure I like s symbols all over Krypton, but then I usd to like Jor-El in the green and red. I suppose its not to far a leap to see the s symbol as a family or tribal one and therefore, much as people use provincial flags, to see it all over the place.

Mind you I always saw the S as standing for Superman.

And isnt a planet full of super scientific men what Siegal and Shuster envisaged? So, given the 30's mentality and the man and superman ideology going around (before the fascist overtones became known world wide) isn't a fascist overtone exactly what a Superman would have?


Anyway. Has this series been collected in a TPB?

I liked it a lot, but didn't love it. There were some great moments, but overall it didn't WOW! me by the end (which I think was mostly due to the delays, so I should sit down and read it all in one sitting).

I started out as a huge fan of Waid's FF, but it's been losing me lately. I'll see where the Galactus story goes, though.

I loved Empire and Waid's run on the Flash.

Why is Waid put in charge of retconning everything? Is he the new Byrne all of a sudden?

He would be if the old one wasn't still wrecking-balling everything up.

With the sole exception of Superman, Byrne has never "done good" with any reboots/major unexplained and illogical changes.

Hmmm...

i liked Birthright alot. i don't why some people say they despised it. there was some great art. some unique takes on Clark and Lois. some nice glimpses of Krypton. I was very happy with it. I kept expecting Lana Lang to pop in but she never did which i found disappointing. i found Lois' relationship to Luthor more believable than Byrne's take where they actually were dating before Superman showed up.

Pardon me if I'm misremembering, but I'm 90% sure that the intrest was all Lex's.

I liked the beginning enough but in the end I thought it sputtered out.