Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes What I read on summer vacation

Thanks for sharing the info on DnA. I'm not surprised. When radical changes are made to a series, they are usually motivated by slipping sales and waning fan interest.


Oh, I don't disagree that they may have gone too far. I've noticed that whenever a series is relaunched or refocused, the new direction usually starts out with a bang. When Levitz returned to the Legion in 2010, the first thing he did was blow up Titan. For me, such drastic measures grow tiresome.


I haven't looked at these issues in a long time, but, based on memory, I would be inclined to agree. Coipel improved considerably during the run of Lost.


They were not only amped up to 11; they were also presented in a new context. The Legionnaires were cut off from everything they had known--their social circles and social mores and structures. I may be wrong, but I think Imra went further than she ever had before by creating an illusion of Tinya and maintaining it for several months--all of this based on her assumption that Jo could not cope without Tinya. Had Rokk or Lyle been around, they would likely have picked up on what was going on and questioned her actions. But without checks and balances, Imra gave in to her worst impulses. She exhausted herself, compromised her effectiveness as leader, and destroyed the trust of her teammates. I thought the story played out brilliantly.


Sure. I didn't mean to imply that the reboot lacked consequences, but it came after 5YL. I was really trying to trace how consequences were portrayed in the Legion universe up to 5YL. I was also trying to draw parallels between 5YL and what DnA attempted.

The reboot did indeed show consequences from the get-go. To me, this was most brilliantly portrayed in the White Triangle arc with Laurel's actions having unintended consequences for everyone.


Agreed. The operative concept of The Legion series seemed to be "Think Big." So, the Legion had an entire world as the "clubhouse," and almost all of the active Legionnaires were featured in every issue. Perhaps it comes back to the common complaint among writers who have handled the JLA and other super-teams: How do you create threats big enough for the entire team every month? But there are other ways of handling the Legion's large cast. In the '70s, smaller stories were emphasized with only four or five Legionnaires per story. In the '80s, Levitz used the Hill Street Blues approach with several overlapping stories going on at the same time. A balance of approaches creates variety. But by 2002ish, things had changed--not only for the Legion but at DC in general. They seemed to be aiming for an increasingly younger audience with short attention spans.


Your last sentence seems to have been cut off.

Agree - I kind of scratched my head there. Although I enjoyed reading that series to a point, that whole enigmatic destructive force that Harmonia was researching and the Oa stuff was kind of strange, and I felt that it could have been done without blowing up a planet.


I agree that it was presented very well - and if you re-read knowing what's going on, there are little clues in both the text and the images. So big kudos to that - it was very well told. To me though, the fact that it was the third or fourth (I may be counting wrong here) variation of the "Imra the controller/Imra out of control" theme was getting old for me. How's that for splitting a hair?


Yep, thanks for the clarity - I think we're in agreement there.



I think that's a great point, and your most likely spot on there. Yeah, I always liked the A/B story approach when used properly, especially if the B story feathered in to the main plot. In some cases you can just do what was done in the Silver Age and just have a couple issues with half a dozen Legionnaires, then move on to a different group in the next issue.



OMG I have no idea what happened there.

I think the point I was trying to make, is that if the main theme of the Legion is supposed to be teen superheroes in a hopeful future, does where DnA's run end get there in a similar way that 5YL tried to (after blowing up Earth, etc)? This is why I'm curious as to the writing of DnA with and without McAvennie and of Simone's ending of the series (without knowing that was going to happen, initially). Does that main theme carry through at the end of the day on the run of The Legion?

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Good question. I look forward to your thoughts when you get there.

I do think it's worth examining whether "teen superheroes in a hopeful future" is really the main theme of the Legion and, if so, is it set in stone? Keeping in mind that they started off as a throwaway "superhero club from the future" and became "Superboy's friends from the future" and even "Superman's friend's from the future," the Legion concept has constantly evolved. I'm comfortable with it growing in logical and gradual ways, such as the main characters no longer being teens.

Well, I think its certainly not set in stone. The question to me then becomes, is that theme of hopefulness (or not, depending on the version) an indicator of success? A better word other than hopefulness may be utopian vs dystopian.

And the character age is another good facet - 5YL aged them into their 30s, which I don't think was a great idea, and they ended up bringing the youths back in. The threeboot seemed to be a late teen team, and they were a bit of a bumpy run. The pre-5YL/Retro team was early/mid twenties and seemed to have the best dynamics.

I think the answer to that, and the level of success, directly relates to knowing who your audience is, then writing to them. Meaning, if the team is a late teen group, make it a YA book with stories and plots that make it so. And I think that disconnect seems to result in the repeated cancellations of the titles.

This is a very good point. There's a big difference between writing for a YA audience and writing for fans who have followed the Legion for decades. I haven't kept up with the Legion consistently since the reboot ended, and, even when Levitz returned, it rang hollow (something about you can never go home again). I am not the audience for the Legion or DC's product in general these days, and I'm fine with that. But the constant reboots suggest that DC isn't sure how to build and maintain an audience with the Legion anymore. (I'm not sure if this is true for their other comics as I don't follow comics news much.)

I think what happened for me (and perhaps many other fans over the years) is that I got attached to one version of the Legion and enjoyed watching them grow and evolve as my life grew and evolved. When that was taken away, it was like reading a different series with characters I had to learn to care about all over again. In reading yours and Ibby's comments, I presume you felt the same way about the reboot (correct me if I'm wrong), so each generation of Legion fans has "it's" Legion, and that means that each new version of the Legion must complete with the memories and associations of multiple generations who experienced the series differently.

For a publisher, it appears to be a Catch-22 situation. They obviously can't have their heroes grow and age realistically (otherwise, Spider-Man would be 75), but keeping the Legionnaires teenagers forever doesn't seem to be working either.

The Levitz retro era ringing hollow feels very true, as much as I enjoyed it, as there were just a lot of tone deaf choices that I think Levitz made in hindsight. I don't think I'm the audience for the DCU anymore, either, but I'd read a halfway decent Legion title for sure. But this statement is a bullseye:


DC has done "soft reboots" or whatever you want to call it, on pretty much every other title. Legion is the only one to have cold, hard resets at least three times. The blame DC throws is always either the fans or the continuity or both. The reality is that they aren't writing compelling future tales to either entertain long timers or pull in new readers. I'm not sure why that is, to be honest. They probably need people who can write a good future team with a compelling story on a deadline.


Speaking for myself, yes and no. I definitely consider the reboot "my" Legion, and was kind of dumbfounded that they killed it, and their universe, after 10 years of stories. But when I started reading the reboot, it opened a door to the prior universe that I really enjoyed as well. I completely understand the feeling the pre-ZH crew had when Zero Hour happened; they took away something that time, money, thought, emotion and energy had been invested. So when the Lightning Saga happened, I ate that up with a spoon, as I wasn't getting the right vibe from the Threeboot, even though it had a few really great stories.

Honestly, I think where DC gets in trouble with the Legion is this notion that they have to be committed to the past of wherever the DCU is at the moment. That's what cause the chaos after Crisis, and all the reboots after. The greatness of it being 1000 years in the future and sci fi, is that you can pretty much do whatever you want from a continuity perspective, but the publisher keeps insisting on breaking the Legion into jail.


And this is another thing where the publishing editors seem to have a lack of imagination. I honestly don't think you need to age the characters very much. Maybe one year of comic (In story) time == 10 years of real time. During that 10 years, update the costume and look or whatever. But that's not changing the fundamental basis of the character. I know writers and editors want to "make their mark" on a title, but they, and the publishers, are too enticed by the gimmicks to goose sales.