Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Is the LSH coming back in September?

But didn't Levitz create Helena Wayne? Why would he try to avoid royalties?

Because Helena Wayne was tied in with Batman, as his daughter, I don't think it was considered to be as original a character. It was Batman's Daughter. But as the new character, there were no ties to Batman and they would have got more royalties.

That sure backfired on Levitz and Staton! Not to mention DC Comics itself! :rolleyes:

Thanks for the scuttlebutt, Thoth.

So, this a good point - who are the "canonical" Legionnaires, and why does it lean toward the earlier incarnation?

three things:

1) Post 5-year gap/TMK, it is a mess figuring out who the member are. In the original pre-TMK run, it was obvious who the true members were. In fact, not counting "false pretenses lad"/"bad guys who briefly joined the legion for evil reasons", there were 37 in total, from the original 3 all the way up to Brek, Tellus, Quislet, and Magnetic Kid.
But after the 5-year gap - who were the members? Was Sade a member (or just an 80s R&B singer? ) Bounty?.. or was that Dawnstar? Devlin O-Ryan? Proty, since he was really LL? Ron Karr? Echo? Do the swath of Khunds really count? Dragonmage and the other SW6-based group? maybe they were, but not clear, and each was only ever barely featured, which brings me to.....

2) the 60-issue/5-year curse. The Levitz Baxter run ended after 63 issues, but that was the original incarnation and the end of a long run. How long? 80+ issues of Adventure, 15 in Action, 130+ in S&LSH, and then 63 in Baxter. Asd in random SBs, annuals, guest apps.etc., and it easily reaches 300 issues, and the span of time was a generation-spanning 30 years (roughly 1960-1990)

SINCE then: no run has exceeded 5 years/60 issues, at least not by much. Sure, some canonical characters have still managed to emerge from that - Xs, Gates, etc. But while I GREATLY empathize with anyone lamenting the loss of their favorite characters, it is hard to argue that characters like Magno, Dream Boy, non-Dirk (female) Inferno, that girl that wore the hockey jerseys, or Thunder (I *wish* we got to see a lot of her and that she became a major character, but she did not) are memorable enough to add, and if you do dabble in that, then you can only choose some, making it even more painful for fans of others that were not chosen. At least the "original run" characters are a fair choice, although even them

3) time or impact: even among the "original 37" members prior to the 5-year gap, membership time matters, Especially the latter additions like Tellus, Magnetic Kid, and Quislet were not there long enough to have an impact. whereas Ferro Lad, although a member for only a short time, has had a huge impact story-wise.

SO, I don't have a problem with them sticking to pre-TMK as "canon", even though I am sure we all have a later character we'd like to see. But I just don't think it makes much sense to randomly cherry-pick the later characters

Still waiting on my 'Legion of One World' team composed entirely of Legionnaires who *don't* have a bunch of Reboot, Threeboot, Bendisboot dopplegangers, like Tyroc, Tellus, Dragonmage, Kid Quantum II, Gazelle, Dream Boy, etc.

None of this 'three Ultra Boys frat-broing it up' or 'three Lightning Lads arguing about how to pronounce Winath' or 'three Brainiac 5's sniping at each other' nonsense.

I do prefer the variety and uniqueness of seeing the likes of Polar Boy, Kinetix, XS, Gates, Quislet, Dragonmage, Tellus, Kid Quantum II, Monstress, Gazelle, Computo, etc. team up

And of course what's frustrating is that if you want a diverse Legion, it's pretty easy to construct one by drawing heavily upon all of these oneboot characters, but instead Bendis insisted on ignoring all of them and then radically redesigning thr "classic" Legionnaires.

I wonder who they think their target readership is. Every creator wants to put their personal spin on the LSH and no doubt recapture the magic of the series' highest popularity. Tough job and no one has seemed to find the secret sauce yet. Maybe we're just too diverse a fandom to target with a single Legion version, which is why I keep wishing for multiple versions published concurrently in an anthology. And if wishes were horses, I'd have Comet grazing in my backyard.

This has been DC's problem for many, many years now. If they can at least get to the point of telling a good story, it would be a great start.


I agree so much with this statement. I'd love an anthology series so everyone gets what they want.

I think the only people to come close to the magic are Levitz, who then has to deal with cleaning up after folks like Giffen doing odd things, and Mark Waid. I don't think any of them want to work Legion again, but I don't know for sure. DnA had a long run, and they definitely put their spin on things, but it was way too Warhammer-y for my tastes for sure. The first half (pre-LSH 100) of the reboot was good, thanks to Waid, and Peyer and Stern were able to run for a while with that initial foundation (it also helped that they had an editor who cared a lot about the subject).

Sign me up for that Anthology series as well!

Yeah. That way everyone could have something they'd really enjoy.

Or y'know, just plan at the start for a limited series featuring one incarnation. Then move along to another incarnation the next year.

Make the stories self-contained, and take pressure off from the start by committing to X-number of issues. Four, six, twelve... whatever seems the most suitable for what the writer has in mind.

Also, this is the future. The stories needn't be yoked to modern-day events or figures. Which means, just get all the issues done prior to publishing. Then you won't wear out the initial art team and end up with another mishmash where someone new has to be brought in halfway through to finish up.

+1 for an anthology!

An anthology series is what should have happened after Legion of Three Worlds, honestly. Again, I am a retroboot apologist, but DC really squandered the potential they had set up. They could have done so much with having three separate Legions and... what? Threeboot shows up once to spy on Superboy Prime?

You're exactly right, supragirl - the reboot team was going to be "The New Wanderers" then were promptly ignored. And now with this Infinite Frontier multiverse nonsense, its the perfect vehicle to have a multi-Legion book.

That's essentially all I'm after. Bendis had yet to deliver even that on a consistent basis, before the volume ended.

Truth. They need a solid writer here.

Because fundamentally, their target audience at this point are people who can afford a 4.99 monthly comic book (or whatever it is these days), so the book needs to be firing on all cylinders in art AND story in order for it to show any value for us. If the art is beautiful, but the story sucks, readers will eventually tune out (and let's face it, the folks who picked up the Legion just because of Bendis will drop it like a hot potato once he's done with it). If both suck, the book is DOA.

Yeah, that first phrase is the key, and moreso, who is their POTENTIAL target audience??. I mean, I guess one can argue that they can choose a particular target audience based on the content they choose to put forward, right?. The question for them is then: how many actual readers are in range of what they are targeting? OR, more strategically, how do they choose a target with the most readers in range?

I suspect they don't know, and so instead of targeting a particular audience they try to target everyone, and dilute their product in the process. (with a rushed untargeted approach.)

I think the biggest issue is temporal. I earlier spoke of being perfectly happy with the "canonical" pre-TMK Legion. But then, I am of the age for which that is most familiar I feel I "lost" the LSH I knew starting with TMK, and as that evolved and in every incarnation since, I am just hoping to get it back. And probably I even overlook lack of quality if I feel I am getting my favorite characters back.

But that is just me. I suspect I am in the minority, albeit perhaps a vocal one. And there has now been as much time since TMK started as there was from Adventure #300 until then. (augh. friggin' time...)

But of everyone who picked up the Legion TMK or later, what is their Legion? It feel at this point like the complementary audience to my own aging demographic is diluted over TMK, post-Zero-hour, the Waid Legion, the cartoon (I liked it!), Levitz's retroboot, and now Bendis. Do any of them represent a potentially large readership? I have no idea. Maybe. But the one thing all those incarnations had in common was the same source material,

I am reminded, however, of how in the early 70s, the introduction of Wildfire re-vitalized interest in the LSH. I think if they draw on the basic source material, but go all-in on some new characters and some good stories, they can do well. I think Bendis was sort of going for this with Gold Lantern, but he only had the first part - the quality of the story-telling did not back it up. And certainly, everything was rushed and cluttered.

The biggest obstacle is: reboots require reintroducing the source material - which is impossible to do while telling a good focused story, unless the writers - and the readers - are patient. The latest incarnations have been anything but. (That said: I still mostly enjoyed them - except for the obvious story-telling gaffes - but I am keenly aware they could be better. I'd rather have the latest Bendis Legion than nothing, though.)

ONE POTENTIAL SOLUTION (for this or any other Legion re-boot): You can't take up issue space to re-introduce or establish the characters. You just can't. Bendis spent several issue trying and still only got through about half of the characters. In the process, he slowed the plot to a glacial pace, and still frustrated readers over the left-out characters. No, if you are are going to re-introduce a 20-30 character team you have to of course market it, and then release in parallel several large companion volumes - or a limited series - that gives the back-story of every character. I think readers are curious enough that they would buy the extra background material. I know I first got into the Legion out of simple curiosity as to who all of these colorful characters from the future were...

... in other words - the biggest potential readership "target" is probably everyone who is NOT already a Legion fan, but is curious.

But i dunno. Maybe the current comic-glut in pop culture will dilute interest in a "new" team (for many) of colorful sci-fi heroes from the future. If so... then as Charlie Brown would say... sigh.....

great points re all the reintroductions, diluted readership, etc.

Couple of things that came to mind,

I followed the Threeboot for a bit, despite growing up with the Reboot. What helped me stay for a bit was how the Threeboot fairly slowly reintroduced characters and concepts (despite being an established team at the time). The first 4-5 issues introduced us to maybe 5-6 new characters each, until we slowly got to everyone. Where Bendisboot failed IMO was just dumping 30+ Legionnaires on a page without anything more than code names. Those of us "veteran" fans would immediately know what Star Boy or Dream Girl are meant to be, but someone completely new would just be baffled. A good rebooting would either start from the beginning or introduce concepts slowly... indeed, rushed and cluttered does not help at all.


I think most of us are open enough to follow, support and accept a new Legion as long as it is done well. I for example, still have the Reboot as my dear fave, but I gave Threeboot and Retroboot and Bendisboot a chance. But the quality of stories/issues and the core spirit of the team have to be there! there has to be a recognizable core of the Legion, so that it still feels like a Legion.

All great points, Ibby. It?s no surprise that Mark Waid was in charge of both of those relaunches. As you said, the threeboot took its time intro in the core characters. So did the reboot. After the intro of the founders, they book went on a clip of introducing a handful of characters at a time, and we saw their adjustments to the new dynamic, so it worked really well.

The Bendis approach would have been better if it had done more than feature one character in the confessional at the beginning, but in the end all it left was the new readers only getting to know about six out of thirty members, and the long time readers, after figuring out who their favorites were, wondering when they were going to get any dialog.

It was sheer hubris of Bendis to do things the way he did.

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Right! I very much enjoyed most of the retroboot, as I had discovered the seeds of that team while I was reading the Reboot for the first time, and I really liked that dynamic too. A good story AND characterization goes a LONG way.

yup! agree, GL. I find most Legion fans I know, and certainly almost everyone here on LW, are open-minded and will accept a new version IF it is done well

and also... yeah, even if we're used to reading a book that juggles over 20 main characters, it takes time to get to grips with everyone! The Reboot also did it slowly... which helped a lot.

I wonder if writers even have the luxury of guaranteed time to develop characters before a book gets shelved/axed. There may have been more support and patience when the reboot was launched.

Oh, this is for certain, especially if you listen to Mark Waid and his various interviews on the subject. The Reboot was part of Zero Hour, where they had made a conscious choice to restart continuity, but more importantly, THEY HAD PLANNED IT ALL OUT with editorial support.

Granted that support vanished in about six years, but those versions of the characters were at least allowed to exist for another five years.

From what we?ve seen with Bendis, he apparently was told to do whatever he wanted, but then was meddled with (exhibit A - the changing skin color of Lighting Lad), indicating a lack of editorial support.

Hmm, I may have to place the blame elsewhere then.

Oh, to be perfectly clear, the Bendisboot has two problems - Bendis' writing and DC editors. (The editors always seem to be in the mix, somehow...).