Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Proposal: The AylaBoot

This started out purely as a lark, trying to imagine what a Legion animated TV series would have been like in the eighties instead of the noughties. The more I worked on it, the more potential I saw in it. So here are the basics of it:

- A war between the United Planets and the Khund Empire has been raging for a few years now. The Legion of Super-Heroes, founded before the war as an idealistic team of teenagers sponsored by kindly old multi-millionaire R.J. Brande, have suffered terribly because of the war, particularly the three founding members: Lightning Lad (Garth Ranzz) was killed in action against a Khund armada led by Admiral Zaryan; his teammate and fiancee, Saturn Girl (Imra Ardeen) has apparently retired from both active duty and the public eye; and Cosmic Boy (Rokk Krinn) was publicly disgraced when his teammate and fiancee, Night Girl (Lydda Jath,) was revealed to be a Khund sympathizer who treasonously sold U.P. military data to the enemy.

- The 10 Core Cast Members:

1. Ayla Ranzz/Lightning Lass, Garth's twin sister, who didn't hesistate after the U.P. sent her a draft notice to be her brother's replacement; she's the audience's point-of-view character, a simple farm girl from Winath familiarizing herself with the greater galaxy.

2. Imra Ardeen/Sensor Girl, a new costumed identity (including a full-face mask) for Saturn Girl, to protect her privacy and security.

3. Drake Burroughs/Wildfire, the team's hard-assed field commander, a tough guy with a heart of gold.

4. Ganglios/Tellus, an amphibious alien with both telekinetic and telepathic powers.

5. Quislet, an energy-imp from another dimension who gets their mobility from a tiny spaceship.

6. Brek Bannin/Polar Boy, a recent recruit and founding member of the Legion Fan Club, a one-time idealist who was hit hard by Night Girl's betrayal, her being a co-founder of the Fan Club.

7. Reep Daggle/Chameleon Boy, mentor and coach to the less-experienced Legionnaires.

8. Gim Allon/Colossal Boy, the best pilot on the team, usually helms the long-distance missions.

9. Andrew Nolan/Ferro Lad, a Black teenager who privately worries about tokenism even in this supposedly enlightened Era (originally meant to be Jacques Foccart/Invisible Kid, I changed my mind at the last minute.)

10. Pol Krinn/Magnetic Kid, Cosmic Boy's younger brother, struggling both to prove himself and to redeem Rokk's tainted legacy.

- The Supporting Cast:

Querl Dox/Brainiac Five; Tinya Wazzo/Phantom Girl; Jo Nah/Ultra Boy; Luronu Durgo/Multiple Girl; Chuck Taine/Bouncing Boy; Lar Gand/Mon-El; Kent Shakespeare/Impulse; Laurel Marlowe/Andromeda

- The other familiar members who have not yet joined will be rolled out slowly, as will the Legion's various powered and non-powered allies.



Thoughts?

Taking two of the three Founders off the board sounds like a decent way to give a bit more development to newer Legionnaires like Polar Boy, Magnetic Kid, Quislet and Tellus, or Legionnaires who never got to have as much development in the past, like Ferro Lad.

Brainiac's also a big panel-hog, so putting him in the supporting cast role might also give other clever Legionnaires (like Imra and Reep) a chance to shine.

Mon-El, Andromeda and Ultra Boy being in the 'supporting' role also could make for some more nail-gripping action, since the Daxamites are harder to threaten. (Khundia being one of those worlds with a red sun would be a great way to keep the Daxamites 'in their lane,' so to speak! Sure, they could still chuck asteroids at the planet from a nearby system with a yellow sun, and bomb it into ruin, but planetary genocide is not standard Legion tactics!)

Thanks for chiming in, Set.

Yeah, that panel-hogging has got to stop! And I love Brainy, but, Jeez Louise, the last 20 years or so have basically been The Brainiac Five Show over and over.

I also have Mon-El as the only Daxamite on the team, hence Laurel having a different surname -- I actually have her and Impulse as cousins, but I don't remember his origin at the moment (and I need to come up with one for her.)

Ah, I was wondering about the last name Marlowe (I'll admit, I know so little about the character, I just thought, "Huh? so that's Laurel's last name? I just thought it was Gand, like that only other Daxamite whose last name I know..."). Marlowe, named after a famous writer, like Kent? Cute. Now I want to meet the rest of their extended family, with last names like Chaucer, Tolstoy and Lovecraft.

You just know that Loretta Lovecraft is totally gonna Superboy's next LL girlfriend.

I have to admit, I'm intrigued by what an experienced writer like yourself can do with a character like Kent Shakespeare, whose powers were always a little quiffy, and got spotty development at best in the 22 page format. (First I saw him, the Persuader's Atomic Axe bounced off his face, after having been said to be able to cleave effortlessly through things like A) intertron, B) gravity, C) time and D) Superboy. I was... non-plussed? All my pluses were totally non. I'm afraid I never gave him much of a chance after that introduction...)

Writing an underdeveloped mess of a character such as Kent Shakespeare is the kind of challenge I love.

(Part of the reason he was such a mess is because of squabbling between the Legion editors and the Superman editors. I don't know too many of the details, but apparently he was originally supposed to be Kinda Sorta Superboy. Ah, behind-the-scenes drama in the comics industry. LOL)

I did get that impression, while a different Legion writer was trying to sneak Kara back into continuity as Sensor Girl. Gosh. They were really fighting the effects of Crisis on all fronts, weren't they? At least with Sensor Girl, after a return-of-Kara option was firmly suit down, there was an interesting pivot, making her Projectra.

Issue 1 - In the A-Plot, the Legion's big guns (Wildfire, Mon-El, Impulse, Andromeda) send the Khund forces on a strategic retreat, while in the B-Plot, Sensor Girl (a reminder that in this continuity she's Imra) leads a small Legion squad -- including new recruits Lightning Lass and Tellus -- to intervene on the planet Imsk, a troubled world rife with civil unrest; introducing Lightning Lass's love interest, an Imskian hostage she rescues named Salu Digby (later to become Shrinking Violet.)

Issue 2 - Having done the big action in the premiere issue, the immediate follow-up is a flashback-filled interlude focusing on Ayla and Imra, and their memories of Garth and of simpler times before the Earth-Khundia War.

Issue 3 - To lighten things up a bit, we have a spotlight on Tellus, who saves the day when a small Legion squad is up against the Dxaundii (aka the Super Moby-Dick of Space.)

Issue 4 - Another bit of fun, with Quislet and Wildfire driving back a swarm of energy imps from Quislet's native dimension of Teall.

Issue 5 - Spotlight on Magnetic Kid, as the highly publicized trial of the treasonous Khund sympathizer Night Girl (formerly MK's older brother's fiancee) gets under way; in the B-Plot, Phantom Girl and Ultra Boy are compromised during a dangerous undercover mission on one of the border worlds between the United Planets and the Khund Empire.

Issue 6 - Spotlight on Polar Boy, still struggling to cling on to his idealism as he is called to testify at Night Girl's trial (they both founded the Legion Fan Club, this continuity's iteration of the Subs;) in the B-Plot, Phantom Girl is able to escape back to Earth, but Ultra Boy becomes a prisoner of war.

This one has quite a dark premise (which I don't mind at all). A UP on a war footing, one founder dead, another disgraced and the third hiding their identity. There are lots of subplots from that premise. You've made sure that this is in parallel with brighter characters and times, which looks to be a good mix.

The everyperson character in Ayla is a good idea (yay for her and Salu). Loads of possible plots against the big bad of the series as a regular backdrop, plus scope to switch it up with others. And you're keen to show that through character spotlights too. Keeping some of the big guns as guests lends itself to that.

How does the UP view this Legion who had Cosmic Boy and Night Girl, and who now have his brother and Night Girl's close colleague on the team?

How does the war impact the Legion code? Your set up shows a big change from their idealistic foundations. Legion 300 shows a very grim version of that.

What is Imra up to, and Rokk for that matter?

There's an interesting overlap of powers in Imra/ Tellus. I wonder how much Tellus will find out, and what steps Imran might take to prevent it, if any.

As an animated concept, I guess the more visual characters work best. It looks as though you've picked lots of good ones there.

It would be interesting to find out where you were going with the series.

Thanks for the positive feedback, Thoth. You really show a keen understanding of the essence of what I was going for at the time.

All your questions are good ones. Unfortunately, I hadn't worked anything out beyond what's already been posted. Sorry.

If you'd like, you're more than welcome to expand on this proposal. I'd be interested to see where you'd take it (sort of like me being the show's "developer" and you being the "showrunner.")

Thanks again. You've really cheered up my day.