Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes PZH Reboot Legionnaire alienation

Does anyone in the know have an idea WHY none of the PZH Reboot Legionnaires have ever been used since Geoff Johns slammed the door on the reboot?

I'm thinking about the newbies (please correct me if I've missed anyone)

XS
Kinetix
Gates
Monstress
Magno
Kid Quantum II
Thunder
Gear

(Sensor is kind of half a point for this and will not be used for purposes of this discussion)

Of those 8, all but three are female.
One is non-humanoid
Three are people of color (I don't think Monstress truly counts in that department)
One was the FIRST FEMALE POC LEADER
One character was a featured character in a TV show (yes, different alter ego, etc.)

If DC is so big on diversity, why weren't these characters kept alive? (Gates and XS don't count, as they were horribly used). It was bad enough that Waid didn't use them. Was DiDio THAT much of an asshole to veto them?

Yes.

Shikari, too

Thanks for mentioning her, Ibby. I had forgotten about her.

happy to, Fanfie with so many Legionnaires around...

perhaps a little graemlin tribute to the Reboot-only Legionnaires:

Beautiful!

Yep, absolutely! I kind of put her into the bucket of "sort of legacy" like Sensor, as she's basically Dawnstar, but technically a completely different character, so she would've been a duplicate if these characters were brought into the OG Legion.

Love the graemlin tribute!

Yeah, I figured Shikari would fit into the Sensor category!

glad you all are liking the graemlins!

I don't think someone like Didio cared enough about the Legion to micromanage the membership of the team.

The basic thing is that for most of the comics community, creators included, the Silver Age Legion is really the core of the team, followed by the Bronze Age Legion, so those characters are going to be given priority in any new incarnation. So characters introduced in any subsequent version are less likely to be reintroduced in any new incarnation. Even the Baxter Era are borderline. Neither Tellus or Quislet have been featured in any new version outside the retroboot, and poor Magnetic Kid was never even referenced in the retroboot. But, generally, the 5YL characters, the reboot-originals, the few threeboot newbies (Theena, Dream Boy, Gazelle), the Academy kids brought in for v7, Bendis and Sook's additions... all of these face an uphill battle for inclusion when you've got thirty-some "classic" members who are considered far more essential in the minds of most fans.

For what it's worth, I'd get a kick out of a Legion that featured only characters created since 1989, but I'm pretty certain i'd be in the minority.

I hear what you're saying but...

The fact that the PZH Legion was around for a decade - a significant portion of the overall team publication history - overlooking these mainly female characters for inclusion in a diverse Legion is a horrible decision.

Didio was a micromanger enough to force Waid to have a separate continuity for the Threeboot instead of advancing the Reboot, from my understanding.

And let's not spare Johns and Levitz here for killing/keeping their pets.

It adds to my theory of why should readers care about the Legion when a diverse group was added to the reboot core but then management - writers and editors collectively - threw them away.

EDIT - and when I say editors, I include DiDio, Wacker, and those who followed.

I'm not aware of Didio being responsible for the threeboot being a separate continuity. My understanding is that Waid had a particular take on the team, and didn't feel there was anyway to graft that take onto the reboot team. He mentioned considering doing a "five years later" style time jump, but really couldn't get it to work.

I agree completely that drawing upon characters from the reboot (and the other post-1989 versions I mentioned for that matter) to diversify the cast makes a lot of sense, and definitely more than race-swapping classic characters. It's probably going to have to wait until we get writers on the Legion younger than Waid and Johns whose conception of what the team is supposed to look like wasn't shaped primarily by the Silver/Bronze ages.

I definitely agree. I feel like a lot of creators (and fans!) just latch on to the Adventure Era (up to Bronze Age), as EDE says, as the core of the team.

my guess would be, a lot of creative processes go: ah let's bring a version of the Legion back! Ok, let's sift through the Silver/Bronze Ages... and by the time they get around to considering adding even more, they're like, "eh, there are already so many of them!"

Which - I agree with both of you - is a shame. Lots of interesting characters to draw from.

For once, I'd love to see the likes of Kinetix, XS, Gates, Kid Q II, but also Polar Boy, Infectious Lass, Nightwind, Dragonmage, etc. get a bit more love!

I WAS tickled pink at that one event - that featured a Legion with cameos of pretty much everyone, any Legionnaire, drawn from multiple eras. Not Legion of 3 Worlds, that crossover with one of the Justice Leagues that included Equinox.

Infinitus?

yes, I think that's the one!

I blame Geoff Johns. He was bent on returning to what in his mind were the "classic" versions of everything - Hal Jordan as primary GL, Barry Allen as Flash, Superman (with some history as Superboy) connected to the Legion, and the Legion basically continued from the end of the Levitz series.

Mind you, I thought he wrote some pretty entertaining Legion stories, between the Action Comics "Superman and the Legion" and "Legion of 3 Worlds." But the complete elimination of all Legion continuity since 1989 (or perhaps even since 1985) has his fingerprints all over it.